My first thought was to tell you to run from that shop as fast as possible. We will never defend a dishonest mechanic, but then it occurred to me there could be more to the story. Specifically, you didn't say how long you were able to drive the car after the "Battery" warning light turned on. That light means the charging system isn't keeping the battery charged while you're driving. When that happens, at most you'll be able to drive perhaps as much as an hour, but much less if you have the lights, heater fan, or other electrical systems turned on. Once the battery runs down, the engine is going to stall, and you'll usually hear a loud buzzing or clicking sound when you try to restart the engine. On many newer models like yours, you might hear a single click, then the starter goes dead. A jump-start will get it started and it will run for a few more minutes.
On the other hand, if something did happen inside the engine that caused it to lock up, the "Battery" light would turn on because the generator is no longer being turned by the engine. The warning light would be a misleading clue. The difference here is the light would have turned on only right after the engine stalled. Here the dead charging system is the result of the stalled engine, not the cause of it.
If my first description sounds right, I would head back with a friend and their car and use it to jump-start yours. You may need to leave the cables connected for a good ten minutes before you start your car to give your battery some time to start to charge up. If the engine starts and runs normally, even if only for a minute or two, we'll know there's nothing wrong with it internally. Take the car to a different shop for a proper diagnosis.
If my second description sounds closer to how the failure occurred, you may be a victim of something this profession is very guilty of. That's poor communication. The computer you referred to that he didn't connect is for engine performance and emissions issues related to a running engine. They aren't used for mechanical problems such as he claims your engine has. Just like people in most other professions, we can tell each other a real lot about a car's problem in less than a dozen words. We do a real bad job of explaining those problems to car owners who don't understand how cars work. In the majority of cases, that is not an intent to defraud or deceive the car owner, but it can be incorrectly interpreted that way.
Check out this article before you jump-start your car:
https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-jump-start-car-battery-using-jumper-cables
Let me know how this goes, then we'll figure out where to go next.
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Tuesday, September 7th, 2021 AT 5:49 PM
