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Showing results for tags 'headlights dead battery'.
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No, not for that reason, rather the much more likely reason - I left my headlights on! But I think my experience may provide a useful lesson for C-Max owners. I got up before dawn yesterday and headed out for a short drive to relocate a captured pack-rat to a more rat-friendly habitat. I turned the lights on, as we so seldom drive at night I never use the auto-setting, which may be mistake #1. When I got back it was generally light outside, the garage was lighted, and I forgot the lights were on. I pushed the on/off ignition button, which turned the headlights off (as I confirmed in a test), and when I opened the door the headlights-on alarm rang, which I ignored as I was probably thinking about happy rats and homeowners. When I got out and shut the door the headlights were off, so no indication of anything amiss. Eight hours later I go into the garage I notice the turn lights flashing about every 3 seconds, something I had not seen before. I thought maybe a door was ajar, but all was well, so I opened the drivers door and got that sinking feeling as the familiar dash lighting up was not happening. I instantly knew what I had done and turned the headlights to off, and popped the hood. I hooked up my charger and it was reading 7.7 volts, and it proceeded to charge for about the next six hours (used 8 amp rate) and all was restored. Checked it this morning, and did a re-creation of the series of actions I did to confirm how the car responds, and the car was back to normal operations. Here's my one very interesting finding, and perhaps someone knows what's happening: with the headlights set to "on", and the no-key ignition turned "off", the headlights are off but apparently a large battery drain is still happening. I've learned my old-dog-age lesson, and plan to start using the auto-feature now and let the car do its job and handle the headlight function.