The Penny Drops

[Greville H. Bowles]

> >"Y'oughta get your alternator looked at," sez Tommy.  "Car
> >oughta run if you take the battery OUT once it starts."
>
> Wrong.

>>I suspected as much at the time, but decided that my role in life was not
to
>>teach electrical engineering to the tow truck drivers of Fairfield,
>>California, especially when I wasn't 100% certain of exactly what was
going
>>on at the time. :-)

I can't claim to know much about the topic beyond the electrical theory of
1st year Physics, but I have some experience that allows me to comment.

One morning a few weeks back my woman's '97 VW Golf refused to start and
began behaving as though it was possessed ... flashing lights, alarm on and
off, assorted buzzing sounds under the dash. Being the crack diagnostician
that I am (yuk,yuk) I decided that the battery was pooched. Sure enough,
when I boosted the battery from the Volvo (I would never do such a thing
from the Audi) the Golf fired up right away but died when I removed the
booster cables. I took the battery cables off the Golf battery and
re-boosted. The Golf ran fine and allowed me to get to a garage where I had
the system tested and the battery replaced. The system was ok and the
battery was f***ed.

My point ?? The car (a '97 Golf at least) will run with the battery
disconnected. The only issue I had with the car over a 25 km trip to the
garage was that the stereo was locked after loss of power and I had no tunes
for the trip.

Then again, perhaps the car was possessed and this is in fact not normal
behaviour.


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Mr. Greville H. Bowles
RR 5, Rockwood, Ontario CANADA
Phone: (519) 856-0213
E-mail: zaphod at cansafe.com
'95 90Q
'85 245 DL
'83 GS650GL
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