Boot light keeps blowing fuse

[dennis]

Needs fixing then, buy her a new battery before she gets stranded.

[dennis]

Not legal though. If you have to have parking lights on they need to be both sides.

[Bob Eager]

My car goes into a low drain mode after a day or two. They warn you that it may take a while to respond to an unlock event. Presumably it polls less frequently for the key - and possibly other stuff.

[Brian Reay]

The car has long since been replaced as we wanted a Smart Car for towing on a trailer.

[Chris J Dixon]

However, now that automatic stop/ start is provided more often, there is a corresponding increase in battery capacity.

Chris

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Rather more than that. The number plate light. And all the instrument lighting too.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Father had one permanently fitted and wired in. With a switch on the dash. But then he did work for a garage.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It tended to be a function on German cars - or those designed in Germany.

Looking at my SD1, the indicator switch uses the same body as one for export with that parking light function - but with the needed contacts etc missing. And a different wiring loom.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

German regs. Both my last and current cars have it.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You have to switch off the lights and the ignition. Mine gives a warning 'parking lights on' when you open the driver's door to leave the car.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

One even more obvious thing. The remote lock/unlock. Requires an always powered receiver. The radio often also has a memory which is lost with no power.

[NY]

These days, why do radios still lose their memory when the power goes off. Non-volatile flash memory is so cheap that you'd think devices would be designed to use it for things like preset station memories. Obviously if the radio has an anti-theft code, loss of power still needs to trigger a challenge for that, so the radio is useless unless the thief discovers the code.

[NY]

Has that always been the case or is it a fairly recent law which posts-dates the time when clip-on red/white parking lights and indicator-operated one-sided side/tail lights were common?

[T i m]

The battery may have been old but otherwise functional if used within it's normal constraints (like not leaving an interior light on overnight).

It wasn't a faulty batter, it wasn't a battery at 100%, like many batteries aren't. It was able to cope with it's *normal* day to day duties, just not an extreme case, just like many 'not new' batteries on many perfectly otherwise functional vehicles.

At what point off 100% capacity would you consider a battery to be cr@p, 50, 75, 99%?

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

Others might have but because I was used to it and carried a tool suitable for fixing it (my Leatherman PST II), I was able to de-immobilise it before it became an actual issue (eg, they cleared that level right to left rather than left to right and by which time I was ready to go). ;)

Ouch.

;-)

That was partly why I wasn't particularly worried, I'm sure they have seen it all before and once launched down the ramp you would no longer be their problem. ;-)

I can be like that, depending on where we are.

As many people do I'm sure?

Is there a reason may I ask?

I tend to pocket any keys and have sometimes gone off with other peoples keys because of that. ;-(

;-)

We do typically put them down in a single place, well away from the front door and not labeled.

Sometimes.

Mine generally has a place for everything and everything in it's place. She seems to be changing now though ... ;-(

I wear my readers all the time and can even see better when driving ... much to many peoples confusion ...

Cheers, T i m

p.s. The clutch cable snapped on the Sierra but luckily when rolling so we were able to drive a bit to a side turning and stop.

Again, the Leatherman PST II was all I needed to replace the cable with the spare I carried and all was well.

The cam belt snapped whilst waiting at some lights but my garage owning mate was able to pop out and tow me the couple of miles home, I fitted a new belt and was back up and running in around an hour. Luckily the 2L Pinto was a 'safe' engine ...

[invalid]

Its normal to be able to leave all the parking lights on overnight, not just one interior lamp.

What are you going to do if you have to park on a road with other than a

30mph speed limit which requires parking lights?

Well the stop start stops working at about 75% so that's faulty.

Do you think they last forever? They are consumable items like tyres.

[dennis]

Don't know but at least 1989

[NY]

Hmm. So a lot of VWs with that feature might not actually have been legal in the UK (well, that feature wasn't legal), and presumably other manufacturers discontinued it or disabled it for the UK market.

I'm always surprised that the definition of "position lamp" doesn't include rear fog lights, since they are the first thing you see, long before the tail lights, as you come up behind a car in fog and need to estimate its distance by the lateral spacing of the position lights. But most cars sold today have only one fog light on the offside (and often one reversing light on the nearside). All my older cars had bulb holders and wires for both sides, with only the nearside fog light bulb missing (which I always replaced), but my present car doesn't even have provision for a nearside fog light.

The Construction and Use / Vehicles and Lighting regulations are most noteworthy for what they *don't* prohibit. If I was making those regulations I'd mandate that all lights (including rear fog and reversing) must be in pairs, and that every front and back indicator must be placed as far as possible from any other *bright* light (brake/fog/headlight - tail/side are OK) so it can be seen even when the car is braking, or when it has its headlights on. Sadly a lot of modern cars have indicators that are right next to the brake lights (VW Golfs are bad for this) and integrated in the headlight housing rather than separate from it.

The primary purpose of those lights is to be seen, and if they cannot be seen because of other lights, then the design is bad and regulations should prohibit it. In days gone by (eg 1970s), it was common for side and indicator to be within or below the front bumper - well away from the headlights. Not any more - there's probably a rule that says this is specifically forbidden, which is utterly counter-intuitive.

DRLs can be a problem, although most cars seem to dim/extinguish the DRL on the side which is indicating - sometimes the absence of DRL is seen before the flashing of the orange indicator ;-)

[charles]

I'm told that my car stores braking energy in a super capacitor for stop/start and the main battery is not involved.

[T i m]

<snip>

Normal for how many people, here (even) for example?

Hope you don't need a jump start in the morning?

Interesting. So in colder climes (were it hits -15 DegC) you would be replacing the battery pretty often then?

No? Why did you think you needed to ask?

Well, they are consumable items that's for sure.

Cheers, T i m