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I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days

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Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days

#501

Post by sh34r »

Dalewyn wrote: post #294
civilized wrote: post #166

My wife and I gave our old car to her parents. In the subsequent years, its battery kept dying and we had to go over to their place and jump it. Never happened in the prior 7 years we'd owned the car. The mechanic said nothing wrong with the battery, but suggested there might be a parasitic drain somewhere. A few days later, we were visiting them. I looked at the car and saw the door closed, but not properly latched…

Tangent, but what's the rationale for car doors requiring slams? They are the only door I know, at least in common, daily life contexts, that require slamming them with the force of Thor to properly close them.

Car doors are unlike any other door in your common, daily life contexts. They are not rectangular. They are heavy and float several inches above the ground. They have hydraulics and/or springs, and typically have two fixed points where they will remain open, even in moderately high winds. They have electronics, power windows, crumple zones, and side airbags. They lock remotely. Their latches and handles are very different from other doors.

A car door is like a bedroom door in the same way a MacBook is like a Cray supercomputer. A door is a door and a computer is a computer, but there is significant variance within that category.

Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days

#502

Post by sh34r »

overthrow wrote: post #3

Well this is timely. I have a parasitic draw on my NC Miata. The first mechanic just replaced the battery. The second told me it's normal for the battery to die if you don't drive it for 3 days (because "cars have computers now"). It seems like mechanics really don't like digging into the electrical part of the car... but these days that encompasses more and more of what can go wrong. Without time to dig into it myse…

Let me translate the second mechanic's advice into our language: "Have you tried turning it on and off again?"

How much of your clients' time (and therefore money) would you spend chasing down a bug in software with an unknown root cause, which never appears as long as operations schedules a restart every couple of days? Software engineers are all too happy to dive into those rabbit holes, but that's because we don't usually have to look working stiffs in the eye and hand them the bill for our services.

That's likely not an incompetent or lazy mechanic. It's an honest one who doesn't believe they can solve your problem at a price you'd accept.

The first mechanic, on the other hand, I'm a lot more suspicious of. Did they bother testing the battery before replacing it?

Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days

#503

Post by ddalex »

o10449366 wrote: post #324
adversaryIdiot wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats insane... To consistently not close the door like that

My wife, bless her heart, leaves everything partially open. Not even just open, but she'll screw the lid on jars just enough where if I pick it up by the top they'll drop. It drives me crazy.

Are you married to my wife ?!

Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days

#504

Post by LoganDark »

toxik wrote: post #101
jeron wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you like watching amateur YouTubers rip out their hair chasing electrical problems, I recommend checking out Tavarish and Samcrac. It turns out cheap flooded auction cars have tons of those

Pine Hollow Auto Diagnostics South Main Auto Watch Wes Work musty1

Do you mean mustie1? I used to watch that channel all the time, super entertaining. Shows you all the cool technical bits of engine repair and maintenance without boring you to death.

Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days

#505

Post by fsckboy »

rob74 wrote: post #401
matheusmoreira wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've met a lot of women who do stuff like this... I asked one why and she told me it's because they don't want to be a bother. Fully closing the door makes noise, screwing on lids can make it hard for people to open them later. So they don't. They close it just enough and leave the object in that almost there state.

IMHO it's less of a bother to have to open a jar and much more of a bother if you pick up a not-fully-closed jar by the lid and then have to clean the kitchen of jam and broken glass, but YMMV...

my annoyance is primarily with the lid not closed on volatile liquids. Alcohol, vinegar, bleach, close the lid please.

Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days

#506

Post by eru »

rjzzleep wrote: post #369
matheusmoreira wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've met a lot of women who do stuff like this... I asked one why and she told me it's because they don't want to be a bother. Fully closing the door makes noise, screwing on lids can make it hard for people to open them later. So they don't. They close it just enough and leave the object in that almost there state.

I think this is more an anecdote than anything else. My wife leaves all sorts of stuff open, and it's really because she's not paying attention, i.e. most of the time she's not fully present. I'm glad to have read this, it gives me a little comfort to see that other people deal with same issues. Sometimes I just close the door for her when she's in the restroom. I feel like a lot of these habits come from having live…

Have you looked into an ADHD diagnosis?

Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days

#507

Post by eru »

coding123 wrote: post #373
rjzzleep wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is more an anecdote than anything else. My wife leaves all sorts of stuff open, and it's really because she's not paying attention, i.e. most of the time she's not fully present. I'm glad to have read this, it gives me a little comfort to see that other people deal with same issues. Sometimes I just close the door for her when she's in the restroom. I feel like a lot of these habits come from having live…

I'm getting older and one of the things I started to notice is that men are just there, doing things that are generally... straightforward. I mean I guess posting on hacker news is probably pretty strange to a lot of people - so ignore that. Anyway, women however, I feel like they build these neurotic behaviors - like learned things that just stick with them forever. Like ouch, the pan was hot, don't do that again, b…

Compare https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20161011-do-men-and-women...

Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days

#508

Post by toxik »

LoganDark wrote: post #504
toxik wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pine Hollow Auto Diagnostics South Main Auto Watch Wes Work musty1

Do you mean mustie1 ? I used to watch that channel all the time, super entertaining. Shows you all the cool technical bits of engine repair and maintenance without boring you to death.

I don't often have to write the channel name out, I think you may be right. I enjoy his genuine and unstressed demeanor towards the camera. Just a guy wrenching on some hardware and talking about it.

Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days

#509

Post by Lord_Zero »

fullstop wrote: post #145

"Fixed" in the same way I can "fix" a stuck key on a keyboard by physically removing it. They've circumvented the problem but are left with less than what they originally had.

Had to scroll down pretty far to find this. Author uses the word "fixed" everywhere but didn't actually fix anything. They just lost a feature of their car they no doubt paid quite a bit extra for on the bottom line.

Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days

#510

Post by OkGoDoIt »

cubefox wrote: post #457
yanellena wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do this to ventilate it so that it doesn't steam up the inside of the microwave. Seems pretty sensible.

Exactly! If there is any moisture left and it can't dry, it could start to mold. That's actually a problem with my dishwasher, which can't be left slightly open (it always closes shut), and me being a single, so it takes time to get a full machine. If I want to prevent mold I either have to start the dishwasher half empty (which is counterintuitive) or to collect the dirty dishes outside the dishwasher until enough h…

Can you pull open the top rack and use that to stop the door from automatically closing?
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