Today was an annoying day. I did some little jobs on the car, like check the tyres and such. I’d cleaned the wipers and did a quick wash of the windscreen – the wipers moved, but the pump didn’t do anything. This made me think something was up, so I thought I’d start the engine. I turned the key, and the best the engine could do was clunk. ‘Odd’, I thought. I tried again, a slightly weaker clunk.
I spoke to my Dad about it and we concluded the battery had died. Our first idea was to pull the battery out and put it on charge. That was a no-go as I couldn’t get the bolt off that restrained the battery. I called Green Flag rescue, and one of their guys turned up and jump-started the car. He suggested I drive around for an hour to charge it back up – it seemed the alternator was working fine, it was just the battery that needed recharging. The only problem with that idea was that I only had a tiny amount of fuel. I drove out to Wycombe on the main roads, and went up to Stokenchurch to give it a good run. I turned around in Stokenchuch, and whilst doing so managed to whack the kerb quite hard, so put a big dent in the wheel and broke the trim.
I got myself to a petrol station, filled up and luckily it restarted. I drove home after that. I wanted to go via somewhere that could replace the battery, but it was far too late to find anywhere open. So, I’m going to have to go get it done first thing Monday before work. It’s annoying, but these things happen I suppose. I was more annoyed about whacking the kerb than the battery thing. Cars are always fun.