Dead battery comes back to life

Jan 09, 2005 3 Replies
H

Hello,



My wife's 94 Lexus ran into a strange problem yesterday. She went to a meeting and after the meeting the car was completely dead - no power, no



lights and had to enter with the key. I wasn't there but the tow truck driver said he jumped the car but the car still had no electrical power. I'm not sure.



The car was towed to the dealer and the dealer mechanic jumped the car (



while I was there) and it started. The mechanic said you have a bad battery. This was my initial guess. Since the car started, we drove home. I measured the battery voltage and it was 12.5V with the engine off and 14.0V with engine running (bad battery?). The car starts OK now



with the 'bad' battery, but I changed the battery anyway.



My question is: Can a completely appeared to be dead battery come back to life or partial life? Or is there a power cutoff feature in the Lexus?



Thanks -



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J

The headlight auto-shut in my 90 LS400 sometime does not work depending on when I shut the car off and remove the keys and whether the driver's door is opened. I back in a lot, so there are many times that I open the door before shutting off the car. In ANY case, the lights never shut off ... and to make a long story short, they can drain the battery to the point of having to reset the audio system (which will also happen if you disconnect the battery) ... in other words ... pretty dead. A jump and driving around a bit get everything back to normal again!

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D

I've had batteries appear to be completely dead when in fact there was only a loose connection of a cable on one of the terminals. Sometimes just jiggling the cable around will restore a bad connection. The dealer mechanic could have done that while checking the battery and not realized he restored a bad connection.

Just a thought...

David

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H

David,

Good thought! I'll start wiggling. I wish I was there before the tow truck with a VOM.

Oh well,

-Harlen

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