buddy

So... I was cleaning and vacuuming my 8 last night, took a good 2 1/2 to 3 hours to get the smell of feet and socks out (I went skating and since my skates are messed up right now, I had to rent some, and they STUNK!!!). Well as I was doing this, I forgot to turn the cabin lights off, and so they drained the battery, which is fine really, all I need is a jump, no big deal. Anyways, this was last night, and well today when I went to go get something from the car (still dead), while the door was open, I heard a weird ticking noise, I looked up and noticed ALL the gauges on the cluster were moving back and forth like crazy. I got up and out and closed the door and looked through the window and they stopped moving. I opened the door again and they moved again, closed the door and they stopped. I left it at that.

It's probably no big deal but I was just curious if anybody knew what this was.

OH YEAH!!! And on the subject of craziness... Recently, I had to rush to the emergency room, so for a while I was driving hard through the city, to get to the hospital which was on the other side of town, lots of braking/accelerating, almost like an autox event, hardly any traffic so that's why I could drive quickly and hard. Anyway, Finally get to the hospital, wrap up what happened and left the hospital to go home, driving regularly. Fine, no big deal... But then my car started going crazy! Super dramatic loss of power/ compression, had accelerator ALL the way down n car was only going maybe 1500 rpm and 5 mph. Lights dimming in and out and the car was crawling, just absolutely inching forward... Not really wanting to die, but not really wanting to keep going either. It finally stopped, turned off, and stalled. Then started up again, after that it took me like 15 minutes to drive a quarter-mile. ANY ideas on what the heck happened that night? Hasn't happened again since then, which I guess has been about a month and a half.

Gonna jump it right now and go give it a bath.

alz0rz

iTrader: (41)

Its because of the battery being dead. Normal. Get the sucker charged.

buddy

Sucker charge tomorrow. lol Cool... Thanks a bunch!

So even the whole experience that night from the hospital and stuff, that's also because of bad charge? Is my alternator not working correctly?

HiFlite999

iTrader: (2)

Probably a bad battery. Interior lights for a night really shouldn't take it down so far as to not start. It could also be the clamps onto the battery itself have some corrosion and are not making good contact, which would also explain why the alternator couldn't bring it back up. Loosen the clamp bolts a little and rotate the connectors back and for to dig in some fresh contact to the posts. Jump-starting is hazardous on modern cars because of the chance you can send voltage spikes through the system and damage electronics. Better to use a charger.

Huey52

iTrader: (2)

^ Just the trunk light left on overnight (due to inadvertant trunk lid ajar) will take down the battery enough so that the engine won't start. Don't ask me how I know.....

buddy

@Hi- I know I'm weary of jumping, just because I have successfully jumped before doesn't mean it won't mess up next time, I make sure not to take that for granted... Especially since SO MUCH of this car is electronic. LOL you should read how the test drive went when I was considering the car a few months ago... here's the thread... https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-discussion-3/so-im-8-noob-190160/

@Huey- It sucks tho cuz it was only for a few hours that they were on. Well... hi-5 for the like...