Today I accidentally left a thermoelectric cooler plugged in after I turned off the engine. It is nominally a 4.5 Ampere drain. A little over two hours later I heard beeps like the intrusion alarm, and found the car only partially responsive to door lock/unlock from the fob. Noting the dim dome light, I turned off everything and waited a half hour before attempting a start. The engine turned perhaps once. So I put on a charger for a few hours, then started the car and checked for effects.
1. The clock forgot date/time--easily fixed
2. The trip computer forgot data--no problem
3. The alarm beep for low fuel quantity sounded immediately after start, with the pump symbol on the dash. The gauge reads below the lowest tick, and the remaining miles before empty field in the trip computer reads zero.
This last has persisted through three start/stop cycles, including two five mile drives. As I filled the tank less than 50 miles ago, I believe it has about 15 gallons in it.
As the battery is stamped with an 80 Ahr rating, I think I just got a cheap warning that I need to shop for a battery soon, certainly before cold weather.
The gasoline gauge thing puzzles and alarms me. I own a code reader (ScanguageII) but it does not return any fault codes.
Any ideas?
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Sunday, August 17th, 2008 AT 12:39 AM
