Trouble With Car Batteries

2025-01-05

Since have a kid who loves to sit in car and press all of the buttons, we have had a few instances of our car batteries dying. We have 3 cars, probably one car too many, but our son will sit in them for a long time and be entertained by turning on the windshield wipers, listening to music, climbing around, and the alike. We also used to give our son the car key fobs and he would open the trunk or unlock the car by accident. I found out that if you hold down the unlock button on one of our cars for 10 seconds it will roll down all of the windows and unlock the doors. I had no idea it was a feature but it was terrifying waking up to a car in that state, I thought someone had broken in.

I will admit that a bunch of these things are all my fault and I should set better boundaries with cars and children.

But a few weeks ago I wanted to give our son a treat and drove him to see the train tracks near our house. He loves sitting in the car and just waiting for the train, he hit a bunch of buttons and we played music. After twenty minutes of relaxing in the car a bunch of the dashboard lights went off, the check engine light went on, the brake light turned on. I knew something was wrong immediately and I tried to turn off and then start the car. It sputtered pathetically and would not turn on.

After calming down, I called Sneha but she was stuck at home with the baby and couldn’t pick us up. We talked about a few alternatives but we decided that I could walk home with my son and then jump the car. So I got out and walked home but our son didn’t want to walk so I ended up carrying him the whole way. It was quicker than trying to argue with him and make him walk, the entire thing was between a quarter and half a mile. After getting home Sneha took care of both kids as I jumped the car and brought it home. We put the kids down that night and after that I walked back to the good car and brought it home as well.

Mission successful, both cars were at home and I could use the battery charger.

The outcome of this was that I hurt my back from carrying our son so far, I should have made him walk more. And just a few days ago I bought a new car battery for that car so hopefully it holds up. I do feel I have had back luck with car batteries, but some of it is also my poor decisions.