I’ve left the car lights on all day at work–forgot to turn them off when I got here this morning–and now it’s dead, dead, dead. Poop. I just went out and turned the lights off, and now I’ll see if it settles down enough to turn the engine in an hour or so. Otherwise I’ll have to call AAA.
[grumble grumble]
Hey baglady, it happens to the best of us. One time it happened to my girlfriend on my birthday. She was supposed to pick me up and take me to some sort of surprise. Of course, she had left her lights on and her car wouldn’t start. ah well.
Surprise!
I did worse - I left the map light on in my car last year right before going to England. That sucker was on for over a week. Completely wiped the battery out. I had to take it into a shop and replace the battery. It may have been my fairy godmother looking out for me though - when I took it in, I had them do a general checkup and one of the tires had a goose-egg on it.
So, what happened? Did it start? Is it a manual transmission? Couldn’t you get someone to jump you or push start it?
Deeply concerned…
Yes Demo, it has been two days and Baglady still has not been able to come home. We (the royal we) miss her terribly but her ordeal has no end in site. How she will ever make the two-mile trek home from work we have not yet figured out. These are dark times in the bagfusciatrist household.
Actually, she called AAA and they came and charged her battery for her. The upside to this is that she no longer gets to tease me for the time I drained the battery in Fort Bragg (CA) during a weekend road trip.
Sorry to here about that baglady. Get home safe.
I have a slight hijack, sometimes I see your name with a capital B and sometimes it is lowercase. Strange.
Ft Bragg? Where are you guys located now? You know we are having a BBQ for pricciar this saturday at our house in Santa Rosa? You are all welcome of course.
Glad to hear she got home safe.
I have AAA for 18 months without a single call, and now I made two calls within two weeks (we had a flat tire out in Reno the weekend we got married).
We were driving THRU Ft. Bragg. We live in the Bay Area.
Where is Santa Rosa? That’s kinda near here, ain’t it?
Baglady,
Santa Rosa is about 45 mins north of San Francisco.
Swing on by if you’re free Sat.
My '98 S70’s lights go on when I start the engine, and go off when I shut the engine. All that the switch on the dash does is turn the dash lights on and off.
A great feature, I think.
What if you want the headlights on without starting the car?
Leaving your lights on is nothing.
If it makes you feel better, I once locked my keys in the car, with it running, and IN GEAR!!
Now THAT’S stupid!
My Jeep has sensors that turn on the headlights when it gets dark outside and turns off a minute afetr i shut the engine off. You can also switch it on like “commoner” headlights. ::maniacal laughter:: 
I used to leave the lights on at times in my Honda. had that car 8 years killed the battery 5 maybe 6 times. Every time it happened I’d recharge it with a real battery charger took about 6 hours. Damn I miss that car.MTS
I saw a neat toy to prevent thia in a Miata accessories catalog the other day. It’s basically a voltmeter that sits on the battery. If the voltage (or is it amperage?) drops below a preset threshold, it disconnects the battery to prevent further drain until it’s reset. The idea is no matter how long you leave the lights on, it shuts everything down for you while there’s still enough juice to restart the car.
I keep promising myself to pick one up one of these days…
If he turns on the lights on the drive to work, or when it’s raining a little, he tucks a road map on top of the dash, in the left corner. There it’s always visible but doesn’t block any views.
It’s always visible as a reminder that something is “pending”.
Works like a string around the finger.
He does that when he realizes on the way somewhere that he’ll need gas before returning, too.
Whoever invented the mechinism that dings when you leave your keys in the ignitian and open the door or leave the lights on and open the door should be knighted. I don’t care if he/she’s an American, it’s the greatest invention ever. I can’t count the number of times it has saved my tookus.
I, on the other hand, have AAA because I lock my keys in my car at least every 6 months. It got so bad that I bought one of those magnetic key holders and put a spare key under my wheel well. Then I lost my keys, had to use the spare to drive, found my keys, and didn’t put the spare back in the magnetic keyholder, and (you guessed it) locked the keys (all of them) in the car.
And that’s not even counting the time I locked the keys in the car while it was running in January.
uh, Deadbolt, err… I mean bio-brat.
That kind of a story requires further explanation! In gear?
Edmunds rates the '98 S70 at around $17k to $20k or so; not bad… but the bagfusciatrist household currently has its eye on a Subaru Outback Legacy station wagon. We’re on an aggressive savings plan and hope to buy one in a couple of years without financing… we’ll see how that goes.