We recently took our car (2012 Passat) in for the 110k mile service at the dealership- it had some unusual stuff to check/fix, so we figured it would be worth it.
Those clowns apparently didn’t check the 3 year old battery (I live in Texas, so 3 years is not unusually low battery life). Somehow, by the grace of God, we managed to do all our Xmas driving to and from Austin, along with associated stops, etc… without issue, and the battery didn’t actually have any issues until about 4 days after we got it back from the dealer. I was sitting there, waiting for a curbside pickup order at Wal-Mart and listening to the radio in the car without the engine running. Headlights were off, etc… Then all sorts of weird dash lights and chimes start going off, and when I went to start it, zilch.
This isn’t my first rodeo with shot batteries in this car. I walk home (~1/2 mile), get my pickup, drive over, jump the VW, drive it home, walk back and get my pickup.
Next day, I remove the battery, and among several other errands, I go by Autozone and swap the battery out for a new one since it was still under warranty.
Here’s where I get angry at VW and myself… In the course of running errands, I had forgotten which way the battery was installed, and figured that the black cable/terminal was negative, and the brown one was positive, and hooked them up.
I was wrong. For some unfathomable reason, black is positive on that VW, and brown is negative. Anyway, when I hooked it up backward, the horn went off, the wipers went, the lights came on, and the car generally freaked out for a second.
I proceeded to reverse it, and everything seems good until I actually go drive it around the block, and the battery light comes on. Grrr… so now I have to take it in to probably get a new alternator I’m guessing. Probably should get it towed as well. Damn.
I wish those clowns at the dealership would have given me a heads-up, and I’d have had them just do it while they were there, and wouldn’t have had to have late Sunday night car drama at Wal-Mart. I wish VW wouldn’t do fucked up stuff like have the black cable be negative. I wish I’d been a little more in-focus and noticed the tiny little positive/negative indicators that were small enough that I had to get my phone’s camera out to zoom in on beforehand.