On 24/10/2019 16:07, T i m wrote:
On Thu, 24 Oct 2019 13:59:04 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:

On 23/10/2019 18:07, T i m wrote:
On Wed, 23 Oct 2019 15:37:02 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:

On 23/10/2019 14:18, T i m wrote:
On Wed, 23 Oct 2019 13:32:48 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:

snip

5W for 24 hours would be 120 watt hours; at 12v = 10 AH - quite a drain on
a small battery,


What do you think the capacity is for a car battery under a very small
load like that?

Erm, roughly the rated value at that load, given it's normally the C20
one.

Rubbish.. a 40AHr batter C20 rate is 24W not 5W.

Possibly, when new and when at 20 DegC and down to 100% discharge.

One fifth the discharge rate will nearly double the capacity of a lead
acid battery.

Agreed, but see above (and depending on what capacity rate you are
referencing).

The point being is that it's quite easy to flatten the battery of an
old vehicle in the cold with just a boot / interior light, overnight.

A mate did exactly that with a Rover SDi and that wasn't that old.

No but the battery or charger were broken and needed fixing.

The battery may have been old but otherwise functional if used within
it's normal constraints (like not leaving an interior light on
overnight).

Its normal to be able to leave all the parking lights on overnight, not
just one interior lamp.

What are you going to do if you have to park on a road with other than a
30mph speed limit which requires parking lights?

I haven't said that it wouldn't drain a faulty battery.

It wasn't a faulty batter, it wasn't a battery at 100%, like many
batteries aren't. It was able to cope with it's *normal* day to day
duties, just not an extreme case, just like many 'not new' batteries
on many perfectly otherwise functional vehicles.

At what point off 100% capacity would you consider a battery to be
cr@p, 50, 75, 99%?

Well the stop start stops working at about 75% so that's faulty.

Do you think they last forever? They are consumable items like tyres.

On 24/10/2019 15:44, NY wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message
...
I wonder how many people know ... and how many cars do it that if you
leave the indicator indicating right (or left etc) with the
ignition off
and lights on side, you just get the single light front and rear on
the
right? So two 5W lamps (plus side repeaters) instead of 4
(traditionally).

Was common on Fords for decades. I know it stopped for a bit (not sure
why). No idea if they do it now (and I have a Ford!)

Common in VAG cars. Dont think you have to leave side lights on, you
just
need to leave the indicator switch in the appropriate position.


Not legal though.
If you have to have parking lights on they need to be both sides.

Has that always been the case or is it a fairly recent law which
posts-dates the time when clip-on red/white parking lights and
indicator-operated one-sided side/tail lights were common?

Don't know but at least 1989

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1...lation/24/made

"dennis@home" wrote in message
news
Not legal though.
If you have to have parking lights on they need to be both sides.

Has that always been the case or is it a fairly recent law which
posts-dates the time when clip-on red/white parking lights and
indicator-operated one-sided side/tail lights were common?

Don't know but at least 1989

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1...lation/24/made

Hmm. So a lot of VWs with that feature might not actually have been legal in
the UK (well, that feature wasn't legal), and presumably other manufacturers
discontinued it or disabled it for the UK market.

I'm always surprised that the definition of "position lamp" doesn't include
rear fog lights, since they are the first thing you see, long before the
tail lights, as you come up behind a car in fog and need to estimate its
distance by the lateral spacing of the position lights. But most cars sold
today have only one fog light on the offside (and often one reversing light
on the nearside). All my older cars had bulb holders and wires for both
sides, with only the nearside fog light bulb missing (which I always
replaced), but my present car doesn't even have provision for a nearside fog
light.

The Construction and Use / Vehicles and Lighting regulations are most
noteworthy for what they *don't* prohibit. If I was making those regulations
I'd mandate that all lights (including rear fog and reversing) must be in
pairs, and that every front and back indicator must be placed as far as
possible from any other *bright* light (brake/fog/headlight - tail/side are
OK) so it can be seen even when the car is braking, or when it has its
headlights on. Sadly a lot of modern cars have indicators that are right
next to the brake lights (VW Golfs are bad for this) and integrated in the
headlight housing rather than separate from it.

The primary purpose of those lights is to be seen, and if they cannot be
seen because of other lights, then the design is bad and regulations should
prohibit it. In days gone by (eg 1970s), it was common for side and
indicator to be within or below the front bumper - well away from the
headlights. Not any more - there's probably a rule that says this is
specifically forbidden, which is utterly counter-intuitive.

DRLs can be a problem, although most cars seem to dim/extinguish the DRL on
the side which is indicating - sometimes the absence of DRL is seen before
the flashing of the orange indicator ;-)

In article ,
Chris J Dixon wrote:
Brian Reay wrote:

Modern cars are often fitted with remarkably small (in Ahr terms)
batteries. 35-45Ahr isn’t uncommon. I’m pretty sure my CRV was 45Ahr, my
MX5 35, and my wife’s Picanto also 35Ahr. Our daughters often left the
interior light on in the Picanto and my wife found the battery was dead the
next morning.

However, now that automatic stop/ start is provided more often,
there is a corresponding increase in battery capacity.

I'm told that my car stores braking energy in a super capacitor for
stop/start and the main battery is not involved.

Chris

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

NY wrote
T i m wrote

I once just stopped at the side of the road outside a shop and because
I was only putting something though the letter box, just closed the
car door. A couple seconds later I heard it central lock itself (with
all the keys now locked inside). Whilst I had a spare set at home, I
couldn't get in till the Mrs was available but considering it was a
Honda under the Rover badges, went into my local motorcycle shop and
borrowed (with permission) a Honda key from a 125 Honda motorbike. It
opened the car straight away. ;-)

More 'public' was when it immobilised itself (I didn't have an
immobiliser fob etc) just as we were supposed to be driving off the
I.O.W ferry. ;-(

Embarrassing. I bet you held up the whole queue in the IOW ferry :-( The
nearest I've done to causing a major hold-up was when my clutch cable
snapped as I was setting off when I was the lead car at traffic lights.
Because this made the car stall in-gear, there was no way to get the car
into neutral so it was jammed solid. And because the car was on a slight
slope, it was difficult to rock the car uphill to relieve the pressure on
the transmission that was jamming the gear lever. Eventually two burly
guys came to help and were able to move the car uphill to let me put it in
neutral, so I could roll backwards out of the way.

I was once behind a car that wouldn't start as it was about to drive off
the Lymington/Yarmouth IOW ferry and I was impressed with how quickly the
port staff arranged a vehicle to tow it clear so everyone else could get
off. It must be a common occurrence for them to have a towing vehicle
readily available.

When I got a house and a car of my own, I very quickly learned the habit
of always keeping the keys in my pocket apart from when they were in the
front door lock or the car's ignition -

Wouldn't work for me because I do have a snooze on
the bed most days. Tho I spose that given I take the
glasses off when I do that, I could remove the keys too.

and always removing the car keys (and, nowadays, locking the car) whenever
I got out, even for a brief instant.

I don't, but my car doesn't ever auto lock. Never forget
to take the keys out tho, likely because you need to use
the fob to lock it and I hardly ever forget to do that even
when out shopping or at a particular garage sale.

I used to leave my car unlocked (though not with the keys in) while I went
into the kiosk to pay for fuel; not any more!

Yeah, I normally do lock it then. Tho one of our chains,
BP now lets you pay using your phone so you never
have to go inside to pay again. Not usually the cheapest
tho and the petrol station I normally used has an
automatic discount for seniors, tho it isnt always
the cheapest even after the discount.

So far I've not managed to lock myself out of my house/car,

I did once when I was building the house with the beetle.
Had to smash the quarter vent. Hard to do that with the
Getz and I do have the spare in the house. No use when
out of town tho. Easy enough to lock yourself out because
you can lock the car with a door open and it will lock when
the door is closed.

and I very rarely lose my keys because *by definition* they are in my
pocket if they are not in the lock that they operate.

It means that if I ever have to leave the house in a hurry (eg fire, flood
etc) then I will always have my keys - as long as I have time to get
dressed ;-) And even if I didn't, I'd know where to grab my trousers on
the way out so I had my keys.

I wouldn't normally lock the house if leaving due to a fire. Flood
isnt possible here. Tho I spose I would want to move the car if
the house was on fire because I park it next to the house.

I'm probably unusual:

Yep, very.

a lot of people empty their keys out of their pockets at night

I take the keys out of my pocket whenever I come into the
house after driving the car.

and hang them on a rack

I put mine in a stack of those big plastic filing bins normally
used for filing paper, with the wallet. Its got the other less
used keys and and the spare car keys in it too.

(implicitly 'labelled' "car thieves, here are the keys"),

My place is such a mess it isnt that obvious, but those
I know know where it is because you can see me grab
the keys and wallet as I leave the house to drive etc
or just to unlock the trailer when they borrow it.

and also put their keys down somewhere while they are doing something
else.

Mine always go in the same place when they arent in my pocket.

I wish I had a tenner for every time we've been about to go out and SWMBO
says "where are my keys" and we have to go on a hunt for them.

Yeah, that's why I always put them in the same place.

OK, I'm as bad with my reading glasses - now I need them even for using
the computer and cutting up veg for dinner, as well as for reading,

I wear glasses full time except when reading a physical book etc.

I really ought to put them on a cord round my neck,

I normally put them in the same place
when sleeping or reading a physical book.

except that looks naff

True.

and like something my grandpa used to do ;-)

Yeah, we never could get my dad to wear his
call for help button thing, it appeared to be
too much of an admission that he had passed
his useby date for him. He had got a mobile
phone very early on so he could call someone
if he managed to fall over when out walking
about the retirement village etc tho.

"NY" wrote in message
...
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
dennis@home wrote:
even a modern car left for 10 days in an airport car park can have
very low
battery. The alarm system is quite thirsty.


Its not just the alarm system, the computers are still powered up.
You can get a clamp on meter and measure the drain and it can be several
watts without lights or alarm.

One even more obvious thing. The remote lock/unlock. Requires an always
powered receiver. The radio often also has a memory which is lost with no
power.

These days, why do radios still lose their memory when the power goes off.
Non-volatile flash memory is so cheap that you'd think devices would be
designed to use it for things like preset station memories. Obviously if
the radio has an anti-theft code, loss of power still needs to trigger a
challenge for that, so the radio is useless unless the thief discovers the
code.

That’s the way mine, the one that came with the Getz, does it.
Nothing gets lost, but you do have to enter the code to be able
to use the radio/player again as an antitheft protection.

On Fri, 25 Oct 2019 04:32:30 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

FLUSH senile asshole's latest troll****

04:32 in Australia? Whatsa matter, senile Rodent? Did you sleep in today,
you 85-year-old trolling senile cretin? BG

--
"Anonymous" to trolling senile Rot Speed:
"You can **** off as you know less than pig **** you sad
little ignorant ****."
MID:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2019 16:27:58 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:

snip

The battery may have been old but otherwise functional if used within
it's normal constraints (like not leaving an interior light on
overnight).

Its normal to be able to leave all the parking lights on overnight, not
just one interior lamp.

Normal for how many people, here (even) for example?

What are you going to do if you have to park on a road with other than a
30mph speed limit which requires parking lights?

Hope you don't need a jump start in the morning?

I haven't said that it wouldn't drain a faulty battery.

It wasn't a faulty batter, it wasn't a battery at 100%, like many
batteries aren't. It was able to cope with it's *normal* day to day
duties, just not an extreme case, just like many 'not new' batteries
on many perfectly otherwise functional vehicles.

At what point off 100% capacity would you consider a battery to be
cr@p, 50, 75, 99%?

Well the stop start stops working at about 75% so that's faulty.

Interesting. So in colder climes (were it hits -15 DegC) you would be
replacing the battery pretty often then?

http://support.rollsbattery.com/supp...acid-batteries

Do you think they last forever?

No? Why did you think you needed to ask?

They are consumable items like tyres.

Well, they are consumable items that's for sure.

Cheers, T i m

On 24/10/2019 01:10, T i m wrote:
On Wed, 23 Oct 2019 23:21:48 +0100, Steve Walker
wrote:

snip

Yes, we had one. One (5W?) bulb instead of four left on.

I wonder how many people know ... and how many cars do it that if you
leave the indicator indicating right (or left etc) with the ignition
off and lights on side, you just get the single light front and rear
on the right? So two 5W lamps (plus side repeaters) instead of 4
(traditionally).

Cheers, T i m

I've had some that do that, but most haven't and neither of our current
cars (or the kit car) do. So from personal experience only, about 10%
have done it.

SteveW

On 24/10/2019 13:04, NY wrote:
"T i m" wrote in message
...
I once just stopped at the side of the road outside a shop and because
I was only putting something though the letter box, just closed the
car door. A couple seconds later I heard it central lock itself (with
all the keys now locked inside). Whilst I had a spare set at home, I
couldn't get in till the Mrs was available but considering it was a
Honda under the Rover badges, went into my local motorcycle shop and
borrowed (with permission) a Honda key from a 125 Honda motorbike. It
opened the car straight away. ;-)

More 'public' was when it immobilised itself (I didn't have an
immobiliser fob etc) just as we were supposed to be driving off the
I.O.W ferry. ;-(

Embarrassing. I bet you held up the whole queue in the IOW ferry :-(
The nearest I've done to causing a major hold-up was when my clutch
cable snapped as I was setting off when I was the lead car at traffic
lights. Because this made the car stall in-gear, there was no way to get
the car into neutral so it was jammed solid. And because the car was on
a slight slope, it was difficult to rock the car uphill to relieve the
pressure on the transmission that was jamming the gear lever. Eventually
two burly guys came to help and were able to move the car uphill to let
me put it in neutral, so I could roll backwards out of the way.

I was once behind a car that wouldn't start as it was about to drive off
the Lymington/Yarmouth IOW ferry and I was impressed with how quickly
the port staff arranged a vehicle to tow it clear so everyone else could
get off. It must be a common occurrence for them to have a towing
vehicle readily available.

I've been stuck on the ramp of the Portsmouth-Caen ferry. Back in the
'90s, with the smaller ferries, the ramp from the ferry and the ramp
from the land both sloped downwards quite steeply, causing a deep V. We
drove off the ferry and as the front of the car came up, the back went
down and the towbar hit the ramp. That was enough to trigger the impact
switch and cut the fuel pump. Of course the switch was at the bottom of
the boot, under the spare wheel and the boot was packed solid!

The next time we went, we'd wired a bypass switch - good job as it
triggered on a number of journeys, but as we'd switched the bypass on
before boarding, the engine kept running.

When I got a house and a car of my own, I very quickly learned the habit
of always keeping the keys in my pocket apart from when they were in the
front door lock or the car's ignition - and always removing the car keys
(and, nowadays, locking the car) whenever I got out, even for a brief
instant. I used to leave my car unlocked (though not with the keys in)
while I went into the kiosk to pay for fuel; not any more!

So far I've not managed to lock myself out of my house/car, and I very
rarely lose my keys because *by definition* they are in my pocket if
they are not in the lock that they operate.

In the winter my house and car keys are separated, so that I can start
warming and de-icing the car and my wife can lock up as she comes out to
join me. One Christmas we went away. When we returned, we could not find
the keys. Our son was only months old and needed feeding. We had to get
a locksmith to get us in and change the lock.

About 18 months later I decided to take the seats out of the car as part
of a really deep clean. I found the missing keys under the passenger
seat - pretty well exactly in the middle, but suspended right up against
the bottom of the seat (why I'd not been able to see them before) over
the seat occupancy sensor wire! I still can't understand how they could
have got there.

It means that if I ever have to leave the house in a hurry (eg fire,
flood etc) then I will always have my keys - as long as I have time to
get dressed ;-) And even if I didn't, I'd know where to grab my trousers
on the way out so I had my keys.

Our keys are left in the doors both front and back, in case of needing
to exit in an emergency. I know the security risks, but I've never
experienced someone breaking in or stealing my car, whereas I have been
in a house fire.

SteveW

On Fri, 25 Oct 2019 04:38:11 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


That¢s the way mine, the one that came with the Getz, does it.

Please ...shove your Getz up your senile arse, senile asshole troll!

--
Website (from 2007) dedicated to the 85-year-old trolling senile
cretin from Oz:
https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/r...d-faq.2973853/

On 24/10/2019 17:16, NY wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message
news
Not legal though.
If you have to have parking lights on they need to be both sides.

Has that always been the case or is it a fairly recent law which
posts-dates the time when clip-on red/white parking lights and
indicator-operated one-sided side/tail lights were common?

Don't know but at least 1989

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1...lation/24/made

Hmm. So a lot of VWs with that feature might not actually have been
legal in the UK (well, that feature wasn't legal), and presumably other
manufacturers discontinued it or disabled it for the UK market.

I'm always surprised that the definition of "position lamp" doesn't
include rear fog lights, since they are the first thing you see, long
before the tail lights, as you come up behind a car in fog and need to
estimate its distance by the lateral spacing of the position lights. But
most cars sold today have only one fog light on the offside (and often
one reversing light on the nearside). All my older cars had bulb holders
and wires for both sides, with only the nearside fog light bulb missing
(which I always replaced), but my present car doesn't even have
provision for a nearside fog light.

My current car has bulbholders and bulbs on both sides, but there isn't
even any wiring to the nearside one!

The Construction and Use / Vehicles and Lighting regulations are most
noteworthy for what they *don't* prohibit. If I was making those
regulations I'd mandate that all lights (including rear fog and
reversing) must be in pairs, and that every front and back indicator
must be placed as far as possible from any other *bright* light
(brake/fog/headlight - tail/side are OK) so it can be seen even when the
car is braking, or when it has its headlights on. Sadly a lot of modern
cars have indicators that are right next to the brake lights (VW Golfs
are bad for this) and integrated in the headlight housing rather than
separate from it.

Yes, there are a whole load of different, poor arrangements.

I had a mk2 Sierra. They all had the same rear lights, but different
bulbholders and wiring harnesses. Some had the tail lights/brake lights
next to the indicators and the fog lights as the furthest inboard.
Others (including mine) had the tail lights/fog lights next to the
indicator and the brake lights furthest inboard - far better, especially
when the fog lights are on, to have a new pair of lights come on when
you brake rather than an already illuminated pair brighten a bit.

The primary purpose of those lights is to be seen, and if they cannot be
seen because of other lights, then the design is bad and regulations
should prohibit it. In days gone by (eg 1970s), it was common for side
and indicator to be within or below the front bumper - well away from
the headlights. Not any more - there's probably a rule that says this is
specifically forbidden, which is utterly counter-intuitive.

Some have the indicator inside the headlamp lens and the rear indicator
inside a circular brake light. Both useless.

DRLs can be a problem, although most cars seem to dim/extinguish the DRL
on the side which is indicating - sometimes the absence of DRL is seen
before the flashing of the orange indicator ;-)

Another problem with DRLs is that around town, drivers see the road in
front lit up by them and as so many cars have permanently lit dashes,
they don't realise that they've got no lights on at the back.

I'd require that all dash illumination only comes on when the lights are
on - they'd notice a lot quicker when they tried to look at the speedo
and couldn't see it!

SteveW

On 24/10/2019 05:26, charles wrote:
In article , Steve Walker
wrote:
On 23/10/2019 22:30, Brian Reay wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article , dennis@home
wrote:
On 23/10/2019 08:30, Tim+ wrote:

About 40 years ago my mother bought a Fiat 124 which was the first
car I ever saw with a boot light. I was demonstrating this to my
future father-in-law when we discovered it had no switch but was
permanently on


Um, sounds like ******** to me. So the battery was running flat
every day?

Tim


Car batteries don't run flat every day just because there is a 5W
load on them. If yours do then buy a working one.

Some of us remember the days of parking lights. No street lighting, so
had to be on all the hours of dark. And with a weedy dynamo.


Indeed, little things you attached to the window ( they clipped over
the edge and stuck out). Single bulb in an egg shaped plastic lens, red
one end, clear the other, held in a black rubber arm which also formed
the clip to go over the window.

Not that I€˜m old enough to have used one but I remember my father using
them and fitting a little 2 pin connector to plug them into in his
cars. (No cigarette lighters in cars then.)

Yes, we had one. One (5W?) bulb instead of four left on.

5 - you forgot the numberplate light

Indeed. Although I'm not 100% sure that my numberplate light comes on
with the sidelights when the ignition is off - it operates separately
when there are no lights on, coming on by itself when the car is unlocked.

SteveW

On 24/10/2019 17:16, NY wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message
news
Not legal though.
If you have to have parking lights on they need to be both sides.

Has that always been the case or is it a fairly recent law which
posts-dates the time when clip-on red/white parking lights and
indicator-operated one-sided side/tail lights were common?

Don't know but at least 1989

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1...lation/24/made

Hmm. So a lot of VWs with that feature might not actually have been
legal in the UK (well, that feature wasn't legal), and presumably other
manufacturers discontinued it or disabled it for the UK market.

I'm always surprised that the definition of "position lamp" doesn't
include rear fog lights, since they are the first thing you see, long
before the tail lights, as you come up behind a car in fog and need to
estimate its distance by the lateral spacing of the position lights. But
most cars sold today have only one fog light on the offside (and often
one reversing light on the nearside). All my older cars had bulb holders
and wires for both sides, with only the nearside fog light bulb missing
(which I always replaced), but my present car doesn't even have
provision for a nearside fog light.

Fog lights are covered in the fog light section.


The Construction and Use / Vehicles and Lighting regulations are most
noteworthy for what they *don't* prohibit. If I was making those
regulations I'd mandate that all lights (including rear fog and
reversing) must be in pairs, and that every front and back indicator
must be placed as far as possible from any other *bright* light
(brake/fog/headlight - tail/side are OK) so it can be seen even when the
car is braking, or when it has its headlights on. Sadly a lot of modern
cars have indicators that are right next to the brake lights (VW Golfs
are bad for this) and integrated in the headlight housing rather than
separate from it.

The primary purpose of those lights is to be seen, and if they cannot be
seen because of other lights, then the design is bad and regulations
should prohibit it. In days gone by (eg 1970s), it was common for side
and indicator to be within or below the front bumper - well away from
the headlights. Not any more - there's probably a rule that says this is
specifically forbidden, which is utterly counter-intuitive.

The wife's astra has the front indicators below the bumper. I thought
they were fog lights when we first looked at the carin the showroom.


DRLs can be a problem, although most cars seem to dim/extinguish the DRL
on the side which is indicating - sometimes the absence of DRL is seen
before the flashing of the orange indicator ;-)

On 24/10/2019 15:00, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Steve Walker wrote:
Some of us remember the days of parking lights. No street lighting,
so had to be on all the hours of dark. And with a weedy dynamo.


Indeed, little things you attached to the window ( they clipped over
the edge and stuck out). Single bulb in an egg shaped plastic lens,
red one end, clear the other, held in a black rubber arm which also
formed the clip to go over the window.

Not that I€˜m old enough to have used one but I remember my father
using them and fitting a little 2 pin connector to plug them into in
his cars. (No cigarette lighters in cars then.)

Yes, we had one. One (5W?) bulb instead of four left on.

Rather more than that. The number plate light. And all the instrument
lighting too.

None of my instrument lights stay on with the sidelights if the ignition
is off.

I had forgotten the number plate light, but as I have said elsewhere it
*might* not stay on either - it is certainly switched separately. It
comes on alone when the car is unlocked - very useful for avoiding
catching the towball when passing the back of the car.

SteveW

On 24/10/2019 08:57, Tim+ wrote:
Brian Reay wrote:


Not that Im old enough to have used one but I remember my father using
them and fitting a little 2 pin connector to plug them into in his cars.
(No cigarette lighters in cars then.)


One of these? https://images.app.goo.gl/7WaTwNAhAv4dQEg39

That plug looks very much like the one used at the end of the cupboard
unit in Sprite caravans of the late '70s - although the socket was just
a plastic, surface mounted one.

SteveW

On 24/10/2019 19:13, T i m wrote:
On Thu, 24 Oct 2019 16:27:58 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:

snip

The battery may have been old but otherwise functional if used within
it's normal constraints (like not leaving an interior light on
overnight).

Its normal to be able to leave all the parking lights on overnight, not
just one interior lamp.

Normal for how many people, here (even) for example?

At a rough guess everyone.
Do you not think that you should be able to use parking lights all night
or do you think its normal to get out of bed and charge the battery a
few times a night if you want to use the parking lights.

BTW its stupid answer like you just used that makes you look like a troll.


What are you going to do if you have to park on a road with other than a
30mph speed limit which requires parking lights?

Hope you don't need a jump start in the morning?

Why would I I have a proper battery that does what it should, if yours
doesn't then get it fixed like a normal person would.


I haven't said that it wouldn't drain a faulty battery.

It wasn't a faulty batter, it wasn't a battery at 100%, like many
batteries aren't. It was able to cope with it's *normal* day to day
duties, just not an extreme case, just like many 'not new' batteries
on many perfectly otherwise functional vehicles.

At what point off 100% capacity would you consider a battery to be
cr@p, 50, 75, 99%?

Well the stop start stops working at about 75% so that's faulty.

Interesting. So in colder climes (were it hits -15 DegC) you would be
replacing the battery pretty often then?

No I would do what the manufacturers do and fit a better battery.


http://support.rollsbattery.com/supp...acid-batteries

Do you think they last forever?

No? Why did you think you needed to ask?

Because you keep stating that they get old and stop doing their job but
are still OK.


They are consumable items like tyres.

Well, they are consumable items that's for sure.

Cheers, T i m



As far as I am concerned you have trolled enough and you cango back to
half brains with someone else.

Steve Walker wrote:

In the winter my house and car keys are separated, so that I can start
warming and de-icing the car and my wife can lock up as she comes out to
join me. One Christmas we went away. When we returned, we could not find
the keys. Our son was only months old and needed feeding. We had to get
a locksmith to get us in and change the lock.

About 18 months later I decided to take the seats out of the car as part
of a really deep clean. I found the missing keys under the passenger
seat - pretty well exactly in the middle, but suspended right up against
the bottom of the seat (why I'd not been able to see them before) over
the seat occupancy sensor wire! I still can't understand how they could
have got there.

I had a puzzler a couple of years ago. I was due to drop off my
partner, as she wasn't using her car that day. Both keys were on
my key ring, so I unlocked both cars for her to pick up some
stuff, locked hers, popped a bag in my boot, flung my coat on the
back seat, shut the door and now found that I had no keys.

We searched high and low, in likely and unlikely places, but
after half an hour admitted defeat, used the spare set and
carried on.

We were away the next weekend, still a little concerned about the
keys, but since we had discounted any chance of them being at
large, reassured ourselves that all would be well.

Back home I started an even more comprehensive search of the car,
removing all contents, looking behind trim... I was on the point
of ringing the insurance company. Eventually, more in hope than
expectation, I felt in the slim pocket on the back of the
driver's seat.

If I hadn't experienced it myself, I would not have believed it
possible.

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK
@ChrisJDixon1

Plant amazing Acers.

"Steve Walker" wrote in message
...
I've been stuck on the ramp of the Portsmouth-Caen ferry. Back in the
'90s, with the smaller ferries, the ramp from the ferry and the ramp from
the land both sloped downwards quite steeply, causing a deep V. We drove
off the ferry and as the front of the car came up, the back went down and
the towbar hit the ramp. That was enough to trigger the impact switch and
cut the fuel pump. Of course the switch was at the bottom of the boot,
under the spare wheel and the boot was packed solid!

Sod's Law that it only happens when there is a lot of luggage in the boot.

I'm used to finding that my car grounds where a gradient changes suddenly
from flat to steeply sloping upwards. When we were looking at houses, we
discounted three where the bumpers grounded on the drive as it sloped
steeply up from the road - in one case I even tried reversing up to see if
there was more clearance than forwards, but it was no better. And that's not
a low-slung sports car or a car with a very long overhang behind the rear
wheel - just a bog-standard Peugeot 308. I even managed to ground my wife's
Honda CR-V (a 4x4 with higher ground clearance). All these occasions were at
low speed, inching forwards and eventually chickening out when my wife
reported that the bumper was about to scrape the tarmac.

I should imagine some ferry ramps, at times of very low or high tide, can
present a risk of cars grounding either their bumpers or else the underside
of the car (depending on whether the slope is convex or concave, depending
on tide height).


In the winter my house and car keys are separated, so that I can start
warming and de-icing the car and my wife can lock up as she comes out to
join me.

I sometimes start the car with the spare key and then lock the car with my
own set while I defrost the outside of the car, lock the house, finish my
breakfast etc. I make sure I lock the car using the key rather than the
remote, just in case any opportunistic scrotes try using a remote-key
scanner. Which reminds me, I need to get a new battery for my car key
because the remote locking is getting unreliable.

One Christmas we went away. When we returned, we could not find the keys.
Our son was only months old and needed feeding. We had to get a locksmith
to get us in and change the lock.

About 18 months later I decided to take the seats out of the car as part
of a really deep clean. I found the missing keys under the passenger
seat - pretty well exactly in the middle, but suspended right up against
the bottom of the seat (why I'd not been able to see them before) over the
seat occupancy sensor wire! I still can't understand how they could have
got there.

Goodness knows how the keys got there. You probably couldn't have got them
there if you'd *wanted* to ;-) Talking of removing seats takes me back to
about 1990 when my VW Golf flooded to a depth of several inches when the
pipes that drain the water from the sill at the base of the windscreen got
blocked and the "gutters" overflowed into the car. The water quickly smelled
appalling, even though I mopped it up with towels as soon as I found it the
following morning, so I had to take all the carpets and underfelt out and
shampoo and dry it on the line, which involved removing both front seats and
a lot of the trim beside the gear-lever. An "interesting" little job :-(



After I suffered a heart attack 8 years ago, my wife couldn't find her keys
to unlock the front door to let the ambulance crew in, and eventually
remembered my keys in my trouser pocket. I have a vague memory, despite
being semi-conscious due to cardiac arrest, surviving only on the CPR she
was giving me, of her panicking and me trying to mouth the words "trouser
pocket". Now she usually keeps a key in one of the doors in case of
emergency.

"Steve Walker" wrote in message
...
The primary purpose of those lights is to be seen, and if they cannot be
seen because of other lights, then the design is bad and regulations
should prohibit it. In days gone by (eg 1970s), it was common for side
and indicator to be within or below the front bumper - well away from the
headlights. Not any more - there's probably a rule that says this is
specifically forbidden, which is utterly counter-intuitive.

Some have the indicator inside the headlamp lens and the rear indicator
inside a circular brake light. Both useless.

The indicator inside the brake light ring is VW Golf (and maybe other VWs)
at its worst. Quite how that got past even the most preliminary safety
checks during the design stage is beyond me. Likewise for indicators in the
headlamp housing, which applies to almost every car since the 1990s.

DRLs can be a problem, although most cars seem to dim/extinguish the DRL
on the side which is indicating - sometimes the absence of DRL is seen
before the flashing of the orange indicator ;-)

Another problem with DRLs is that around town, drivers see the road in
front lit up by them and as so many cars have permanently lit dashes, they
don't realise that they've got no lights on at the back.

I'd require that all dash illumination only comes on when the lights are
on - they'd notice a lot quicker when they tried to look at the speedo and
couldn't see it!

Cars with real dials are usually very hard to see at night without the panel
lights on (which come on with the side lights) which tends to enforce what
you are suggesting. The problem is with cars that have digital displays,
because those have to come on even during the day when you won't have your
lights on.

How anyone can see to drive at night with the road only illuminated by side
or DRL beats me, though for some godforsaken reason it is actually not
illegal to drive on side lights only as long as the road is lit by street
lights. Both for making myself more visible and for lighting objects from
the side as well as from overhead to make hazards more visible, I would
never dream of turning my headlights out just because there are street
lights, and I use high beam as much as possible as long as it will not
dazzle any other vehicle driver (car or bike) - pedestrians who are dazzled
have the luxury of being able to close their eyes or look away which someone
in charge of a moving vehicle can't do.

On 24/10/2019 20:54, NY wrote:
"Steve Walker" wrote in message
...
The primary purpose of those lights is to be seen, and if they cannot
be seen because of other lights, then the design is bad and
regulations should prohibit it. In days gone by (eg 1970s), it was
common for side and indicator to be within or below the front bumper
- well away from the headlights. Not any more - there's probably a
rule that says this is specifically forbidden, which is utterly
counter-intuitive.

Some have the indicator inside the headlamp lens and the rear
indicator inside a circular brake light. Both useless.

The indicator inside the brake light ring is VW Golf (and maybe other
VWs) at its worst. Quite how that got past even the most preliminary
safety checks during the design stage is beyond me. Likewise for
indicators in the headlamp housing, which applies to almost every car
since the 1990s.

I don't mean just within the cover, actually in the headlight itself. I
can't think where I have seen those now though.

DRLs can be a problem, although most cars seem to dim/extinguish the
DRL on the side which is indicating - sometimes the absence of DRL is
seen before the flashing of the orange indicator ;-)

Another problem with DRLs is that around town, drivers see the road in
front lit up by them and as so many cars have permanently lit dashes,
they don't realise that they've got no lights on at the back.

I'd require that all dash illumination only comes on when the lights
are on - they'd notice a lot quicker when they tried to look at the
speedo and couldn't see it!

Cars with real dials are usually very hard to see at night without the
panel lights on (which come on with the side lights) which tends to
enforce what you are suggesting. The problem is with cars that have
digital displays, because those have to come on even during the day when
you won't have your lights on.

I'm not up to cars that new I have however driven a number of cars
with permanently illuminated dashes and conventional dials. Most of
those cars were old enough to use bulbs rather than LEDs and using them
all the time seemed to shorten the bulb life. Of course replacement
meant removing half the dash!

How anyone can see to drive at night with the road only illuminated by
side or DRL beats me, though for some godforsaken reason it is actually
not illegal to drive on side lights only as long as the road is lit by
street lights. Both for making myself more visible and for lighting
objects from the side as well as from overhead to make hazards more
visible, I would never dream of turning my headlights out just because
there are street lights, and I use high beam as much as possible as long
as it will not dazzle any other vehicle driver (car or bike) -
pedestrians who are dazzled have the luxury of being able to close their
eyes or look away which someone in charge of a moving vehicle can't do.

Yes, I'd agree with that, although I will try not to dazzle pedestrians
either, as long as it is safe for me to do so.

I do object though to high-powered, flashing bike lights. The flash
attracts your eyes, as they move with the bike, there is no concept of
dipped beam and the power can be absolutely dazzling. Even worse are the
ones that they mount on their heads, so they see you, look and direct
the beam right at your eyes!

SteveW

In message , T i m
writes
On Wed, 23 Oct 2019 09:59:20 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:

On 23/10/2019 08:30, Tim+ wrote:

About 40 years ago my mother bought a Fiat 124 which was the first car I
ever saw with a boot light. I was demonstrating this to my future
father-in-law when we discovered it had no switch but was permanently on


Um, sounds like ******** to me. So the battery was running flat every day?

Tim


Car batteries don't run flat every day just because there is a 5W load
on them.

What about the sort of capacity battery that would have been found on
something like that in 1979 in the middle of the winter?

Say it was a 40Ah new, down to 30Ah because of it's age and now 15Ah
because of the cold ... and it will only restart the engine when the
battery is greater than 50% charged, then it can only take a (say) .5A
parasitic load for 14 hours?

I still don't believe a boot light wouldn't have a switch of some sort
though, possibly a gravity one or a micro switch up in the hinges
somewhere?

It was a long time ago, but a works colleague started having flat
battery problems with a Marina. Eventually I had a look, and found that
the boot light switch was a rather crude affair - a large microswitch
(?) mounted on a flimsy bracket, with a plunger that the boot lid pushed
in when it was closed. The bracket had become bent, and the boot lid no
longer contacted the plunger.
--
Ian

On 24/10/2019 22:40, Ian Jackson wrote:
In message , T i m
writes
On Wed, 23 Oct 2019 09:59:20 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:

On 23/10/2019 08:30, Tim+ wrote:

About 40 years ago my mother bought a Fiat 124 which was the first
car I
ever saw with a boot light. I was demonstrating this to my future
father-in-law when we discovered it had no switch but was
permanently on


Um, sounds like ******** to me. So the battery was running flat
every day?

Tim


Car batteries don't run flat every day just because there is a 5W load
on them.

What about the sort of capacity battery that would have been found on
something like that in 1979 in the middle of the winter?

Say it was a 40Ah new, down to 30Ah because of it's age and now 15Ah
because of the cold ...Â* and it will only restart the engine when the
battery is greater than 50% charged, then it can only take a (say) .5A
parasitic load for 14 hours?

I still don't believe a boot light wouldn't have a switch of some sort
though, possibly a gravity one or a micro switch up in the hinges
somewhere?

It was a long time ago, but a works colleague started having flat
battery problems with a Marina. Eventually I had a look, and found that
the boot light switch was a rather crude affair - a large microswitch
(?) mounted on a flimsy bracket, with a plunger that the boot lid pushed
in when it was closed. The bracket had become bent, and the boot lid no
longer contacted the plunger.

The old, "How do we know the fridge light goes off when we close the door?"

SteveW

"Steve Walker" wrote in message
...
On 24/10/2019 20:54, NY wrote:
"Steve Walker" wrote in message
...
The primary purpose of those lights is to be seen, and if they cannot
be seen because of other lights, then the design is bad and regulations
should prohibit it. In days gone by (eg 1970s), it was common for side
and indicator to be within or below the front bumper - well away from
the headlights. Not any more - there's probably a rule that says this
is specifically forbidden, which is utterly counter-intuitive.

Some have the indicator inside the headlamp lens and the rear indicator
inside a circular brake light. Both useless.

The indicator inside the brake light ring is VW Golf (and maybe other
VWs) at its worst. Quite how that got past even the most preliminary
safety checks during the design stage is beyond me. Likewise for
indicators in the headlamp housing, which applies to almost every car
since the 1990s.

I don't mean just within the cover, actually in the headlight itself. I
can't think where I have seen those now though.

I noticed one last weekend which blinked the line of about
4 lights in a row in a diagonal line at the front under the
headlights like you see some have now. Didnt notice the
model, one of the medium rather anonymous SUVs.

DRLs can be a problem, although most cars seem to dim/extinguish the
DRL on the side which is indicating - sometimes the absence of DRL is
seen before the flashing of the orange indicator ;-)

Another problem with DRLs is that around town, drivers see the road in
front lit up by them and as so many cars have permanently lit dashes,
they don't realise that they've got no lights on at the back.

I'd require that all dash illumination only comes on when the lights are
on - they'd notice a lot quicker when they tried to look at the speedo
and couldn't see it!

Cars with real dials are usually very hard to see at night without the
panel lights on (which come on with the side lights) which tends to
enforce what you are suggesting. The problem is with cars that have
digital displays, because those have to come on even during the day when
you won't have your lights on.

I'm not up to cars that new I have however driven a number of cars with
permanently illuminated dashes and conventional dials.

I wish mine was. I find it hard to read some stuff like the dash
clock in some situations during the day, particularly when there
is quite strong sunlight coming onto the dash with the clock
a bit shaded in its hole in the dash. If I turn the sidelights on
and I can read the clock but it doesnt stay on all the time
the engine is running.

Most of those cars were old enough to use bulbs rather than LEDs and using
them all the time seemed to shorten the bulb life. Of course replacement
meant removing half the dash!

Never had one fail in the 73 Golf that I drove for 45 years but
then I mostly didnt drive at night so that doesnt prove much.

How anyone can see to drive at night with the road only illuminated by
side or DRL beats me, though for some godforsaken reason it is actually
not illegal to drive on side lights only as long as the road is lit by
street lights. Both for making myself more visible and for lighting
objects from the side as well as from overhead to make hazards more
visible, I would never dream of turning my headlights out just because
there are street lights, and I use high beam as much as possible as long
as it will not dazzle any other vehicle driver (car or bike) -
pedestrians who are dazzled have the luxury of being able to close their
eyes or look away which someone in charge of a moving vehicle can't do.

Yes, I'd agree with that, although I will try not to dazzle pedestrians
either, as long as it is safe for me to do so.

Yeah, wouldnt want to see them stumble out onto the road.
We mostly dont have footpaths here so most of those out
for exercise or walking the dog do it on the road and a lot
of them in the dark in winter mornings and they often
do walk into the traffic as they are sposed to do.

Hardly any of them get off the road onto the verge,
what we call the nature strip when a car is coming.

I do object though to high-powered, flashing bike lights.
The flash attracts your eyes, as they move with the bike,
? there is no concept of dipped beam and the power can
be absolutely dazzling.

Even worse are the ones that they mount on their heads, so they see you,
look and direct the beam right at your eyes!


We dont have many of those.

"Steve Walker" wrote in message
...
On 24/10/2019 17:16, NY wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message
news
Not legal though.
If you have to have parking lights on they need to be both sides.

Has that always been the case or is it a fairly recent law which
posts-dates the time when clip-on red/white parking lights and
indicator-operated one-sided side/tail lights were common?

Don't know but at least 1989

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1...lation/24/made

Hmm. So a lot of VWs with that feature might not actually have been legal
in the UK (well, that feature wasn't legal), and presumably other
manufacturers discontinued it or disabled it for the UK market.

I'm always surprised that the definition of "position lamp" doesn't
include rear fog lights, since they are the first thing you see, long
before the tail lights, as you come up behind a car in fog and need to
estimate its distance by the lateral spacing of the position lights. But
most cars sold today have only one fog light on the offside (and often
one reversing light on the nearside). All my older cars had bulb holders
and wires for both sides, with only the nearside fog light bulb missing
(which I always replaced), but my present car doesn't even have provision
for a nearside fog light.

My current car has bulbholders and bulbs on both sides, but there isn't
even any wiring to the nearside one!

The Construction and Use / Vehicles and Lighting regulations are most
noteworthy for what they *don't* prohibit. If I was making those
regulations I'd mandate that all lights (including rear fog and
reversing) must be in pairs, and that every front and back indicator must
be placed as far as possible from any other *bright* light
(brake/fog/headlight - tail/side are OK) so it can be seen even when the
car is braking, or when it has its headlights on. Sadly a lot of modern
cars have indicators that are right next to the brake lights (VW Golfs
are bad for this) and integrated in the headlight housing rather than
separate from it.

Yes, there are a whole load of different, poor arrangements.

I had a mk2 Sierra. They all had the same rear lights, but different
bulbholders and wiring harnesses. Some had the tail lights/brake lights
next to the indicators and the fog lights as the furthest inboard. Others
(including mine) had the tail lights/fog lights next to the indicator and
the brake lights furthest inboard - far better, especially when the fog
lights are on, to have a new pair of lights come on when you brake rather
than an already illuminated pair brighten a bit.

The primary purpose of those lights is to be seen, and if they cannot be
seen because of other lights, then the design is bad and regulations
should prohibit it. In days gone by (eg 1970s), it was common for side
and indicator to be within or below the front bumper - well away from the
headlights. Not any more - there's probably a rule that says this is
specifically forbidden, which is utterly counter-intuitive.

Some have the indicator inside the headlamp lens and the rear indicator
inside a circular brake light. Both useless.

DRLs can be a problem, although most cars seem to dim/extinguish the DRL
on the side which is indicating - sometimes the absence of DRL is seen
before the flashing of the orange indicator ;-)

Another problem with DRLs is that around town, drivers see the road in
front lit up by them and as so many cars have permanently lit dashes, they
don't realise that they've got no lights on at the back.

I'd require that all dash illumination only comes on when the lights are
on - they'd notice a lot quicker when they tried to look at the speedo and
couldn't see it!

I'd prefer to be able to turn the dash lights on during
the day because some of the more obscure displays
lie the clock arent visible in some situations in the day.

And with automatic headlights now, forgetting to turn them
on when the street lights are bright enough is less of a problem.

"Steve Walker" wrote in message
...
On 24/10/2019 15:00, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Steve Walker wrote:
Some of us remember the days of parking lights. No street lighting,
so had to be on all the hours of dark. And with a weedy dynamo.


Indeed, little things you attached to the window ( they clipped over
the edge and stuck out). Single bulb in an egg shaped plastic lens,
red one end, clear the other, held in a black rubber arm which also
formed the clip to go over the window.

Not that I€˜m old enough to have used one but I remember my father
using them and fitting a little 2 pin connector to plug them into in
his cars. (No cigarette lighters in cars then.)

Yes, we had one. One (5W?) bulb instead of four left on.

Rather more than that. The number plate light. And all the instrument
lighting too.

None of my instrument lights stay on with the sidelights if the ignition
is off.

I had forgotten the number plate light, but as I have said elsewhere it
*might* not stay on either - it is certainly switched separately. It comes
on alone when the car is unlocked - very useful for avoiding catching the
towball when passing the back of the car.

Mine doesnt and that would be very useful because
I always walk past it when I get into the car at home.

In message , Steve Walker
writes
On 24/10/2019 22:40, Ian Jackson wrote:
In message , T i m
writes
On Wed, 23 Oct 2019 09:59:20 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:

On 23/10/2019 08:30, Tim+ wrote:

About 40 years ago my mother bought a Fiat 124 which was the
first car I
ever saw with a boot light. I was demonstrating this to my future
father-in-law when we discovered it had no switch but was
permanently on


Um, sounds like ******** to me. So the battery was running flat
every day?

Tim


Car batteries don't run flat every day just because there is a 5W load
on them.

What about the sort of capacity battery that would have been found on
something like that in 1979 in the middle of the winter?

Say it was a 40Ah new, down to 30Ah because of it's age and now 15Ah
because of the cold ...* and it will only restart the engine when the
battery is greater than 50% charged, then it can only take a (say) .5A
parasitic load for 14 hours?

I still don't believe a boot light wouldn't have a switch of some sort
though, possibly a gravity one or a micro switch up in the hinges
somewhere?

It was a long time ago, but a works colleague started having flat
battery problems with a Marina. Eventually I had a look, and found
that the boot light switch was a rather crude affair - a large
microswitch (?) mounted on a flimsy bracket, with a plunger that the
boot lid pushed in when it was closed. The bracket had become bent,
and the boot lid no longer contacted the plunger.

The old, "How do we know the fridge light goes off when we close the door?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dSupxO3OPY


--
Ian

On Fri, 25 Oct 2019 09:42:31 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


I wish mine was.

FLUSH more troll****

Nobody gives a **** what you wish or don't wish, senile pest!

--
Website (from 2007) dedicated to the 85-year-old trolling senile
cretin from Oz:
https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/r...d-faq.2973853/

On Fri, 25 Oct 2019 15:47:06 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


I'd prefer

FLUSH more troll****

No intelligent person gives a **** what you prefer or don't prefer, senile
pest!

--
The Natural Philosopher about senile Rot:
"Rod speed is not a Brexiteer. He is an Australian troll and arsehole."
Message-ID:

On Fri, 25 Oct 2019 15:50:29 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


Mine doesn¢t

No intelligent person gives a **** what yours does or doesn't, senile
Rodent!

--
"Anonymous" to trolling senile Rot Speed:
"You can **** off as you know less than pig **** you sad
little ignorant ****."
MID:

dennis@home wrote:
On 24/10/2019 19:13, T i m wrote:
On Thu, 24 Oct 2019 16:27:58 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:

snip

The battery may have been old but otherwise functional if used within
it's normal constraints (like not leaving an interior light on
overnight).

Its normal to be able to leave all the parking lights on overnight, not
just one interior lamp.

Normal for how many people, here (even) for example?

At a rough guess everyone.
Do you not think that you should be able to use parking lights all night
or do you think its normal to get out of bed and charge the battery a
few times a night if you want to use the parking lights.

In practice nobody leaves their €œparking lights€� on all night because in
the real world, you rarely know how good your battery capacity is. A
€œfailing€� battery can go on being functional for years if its in regular
use, not subject to extremes of cold etc., and until its stressed you just
wont know its capacity.

Leaving parking lights on overnight though is a stress that most folk know
might well flatten on old battery so they just dont do it. When did you
last see a car in the middle of the night with parking lights on?


What are you going to do if you have to park on a road with other than a
30mph speed limit which requires parking lights?

Park it for as short a time as possible or park elsewhere! You rarely
*have* to park somewhere where parking lights are required. If you do have
to then hope you have a good battery.


Hope you don't need a jump start in the morning?

Why would I I have a proper battery that does what it should, if yours
doesn't then get it fixed like a normal person would.

Ah but, most folk will only know that they have a €œproper€� battery if the
car starts in the morning after leaving parking lights on. Who routinely
tests their battery capacity or replaces a battery before it fails?

Leaving parking lights on overnight is a gamble that most motorists with
real lifetime experience prefer not to take.

Tim

--
Please don't feed the trolls

"Tim+" wrote in message
news:833068154.593687643.536542.tim.downie-
Park it for as short a time as possible or park elsewhere! You rarely
*have* to park somewhere where parking lights are required. If you do
have
to then hope you have a good battery.

Leaving parking lights on overnight is a gamble that most motorists with
real lifetime experience prefer not to take.

Where we used to live was on a road with a 40 mph speed limit. The council
were thinking of reducing it to 30 mph, but the residents decided to leave
it at 40 (since they were given the choice) because with a 30 mph limit,
cars are allowed to park facing the direction of traffic overnight, whereas
in a 40 zone they are not - and we had a lot of problem with the people in
the houses on one side of the street parking on the road instead of in the
allocated yard at one end of the group of houses; the houses on the opposite
side all had their own drives to park on.

I'm not sure whether the parking-with-lights regulation also featured -
maybe at 30 they could park without lights, and at 40 they needed lights and
no-one would risk leaving their lights on and flatten their battery, which
was a blunt instrument to say (effectively) no overnight parking on the
road.

In article
, Tim+
wrote:
dennis@home wrote:
On 24/10/2019 19:13, T i m wrote:
On Thu, 24 Oct 2019 16:27:58 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:

snip

The battery may have been old but otherwise functional if used
within it's normal constraints (like not leaving an interior light
on overnight).

Its normal to be able to leave all the parking lights on overnight,
not just one interior lamp.

Normal for how many people, here (even) for example?

At a rough guess everyone. Do you not think that you should be able to
use parking lights all night or do you think its normal to get out of
bed and charge the battery a few times a night if you want to use the
parking lights.

In practice nobody leaves their ”parking lights• on all night because in
the real world, you rarely know how good your battery capacity is. A
”failing• battery can go on being functional for years if it‘s in regular
use, not subject to extremes of cold etc., and until it‘s stressed you
just won‘t know it‘s capacity.

Leaving parking lights on overnight though is a stress that most folk
know might well flatten on old battery so they just don‘t do it. When
did you last see a car in the middle of the night with parking lights on?


What are you going to do if you have to park on a road with other
than a 30mph speed limit which requires parking lights?

Park it for as short a time as possible or park elsewhere! You rarely
*have* to park somewhere where parking lights are required. If you do
have to then hope you have a good battery.


Hope you don't need a jump start in the morning?

Why would I I have a proper battery that does what it should, if yours
doesn't then get it fixed like a normal person would.

Ah but, most folk will only know that they have a ”proper• battery if the
car starts in the morning after leaving parking lights on. Who routinely
tests their battery capacity or replaces a battery before it fails?

Leaving parking lights on overnight is a gamble that most motorists with
real lifetime experience prefer not to take.

There must be a 30mph limit if you want to park without lights. In many
villages there isn't one.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

charles wrote:
In article
, Tim+
wrote:

Leaving parking lights on overnight is a gamble that most motorists with
real lifetime experience prefer not to take.

There must be a 30mph limit if you want to park without lights. In many
villages there isn't one.

You need then in 30mph zones too if youre parked within 10 metres of a
junction (and not in a marked bay).

Im not arguing about the legality but the reality is that parking lights
are very rarely used and Im willing to bet that *extremely* few people are
going to use them overnight. Cant recall the last time I saw parking
lights used by anyone.

Tim



--
Please don't feed the trolls

Chris J Dixon wrote:
Steve Walker wrote:

In the winter my house and car keys are separated, so that I can start
warming and de-icing the car and my wife can lock up as she comes out to
join me. One Christmas we went away. When we returned, we could not find
the keys. Our son was only months old and needed feeding. We had to get
a locksmith to get us in and change the lock.

About 18 months later I decided to take the seats out of the car as part
of a really deep clean. I found the missing keys under the passenger
seat - pretty well exactly in the middle, but suspended right up against
the bottom of the seat (why I'd not been able to see them before) over
the seat occupancy sensor wire! I still can't understand how they could
have got there.

I had a puzzler a couple of years ago. I was due to drop off my
partner, as she wasn't using her car that day. Both keys were on
my key ring, so I unlocked both cars for her to pick up some
stuff, locked hers, popped a bag in my boot, flung my coat on the
back seat, shut the door and now found that I had no keys.

We searched high and low, in likely and unlikely places, but
after half an hour admitted defeat, used the spare set and
carried on.

We were away the next weekend, still a little concerned about the
keys, but since we had discounted any chance of them being at
large, reassured ourselves that all would be well.

Back home I started an even more comprehensive search of the car,
removing all contents, looking behind trim... I was on the point
of ringing the insurance company. Eventually, more in hope than
expectation, I felt in the slim pocket on the back of the
driver's seat.

If I hadn't experienced it myself, I would not have believed it
possible.

Chris

A few years back we lost two sets of keys for two different cars around the
same time. We never found them. We are generally extremely careful with
keys, I generally know exactly were mine are, as does my wife. When we go
away, keys are locked away etc.

To this day we have no real idea what happened to them. Our best guess is
they were placed were we put by them to be locked away either just before
or just after a trip and they were knocked into a bin nearby.

Either way, it was an expensive experience!

On Thu, 24 Oct 2019 20:17:39 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:

On 24/10/2019 19:13, T i m wrote:
On Thu, 24 Oct 2019 16:27:58 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:

snip

The battery may have been old but otherwise functional if used within
it's normal constraints (like not leaving an interior light on
overnight).

Its normal to be able to leave all the parking lights on overnight, not
just one interior lamp.

Normal for how many people, here (even) for example?

At a rough guess everyone.

I consider it 'normal' to have a vehicle that can tow and be at least
a hatchback, if not an mini MPV / estate. I do that not because I need
the space 'most days', but I need the space some times and am willing
to pay the price of driving such a vehicle. [1]

I don't consider it a normal requirement to be able to sustain parking
lights overnight because I would never be parking anywhere that
required such. If I had to it would be because I had broken down and
would hope to be recovered before the battery went flat.

Do you not think that you should be able to use parking lights all night

Do I think you should be able? Possibly.

or do you think its normal to get out of bed and charge the battery a
few times a night if you want to use the parking lights.

No, you just wouldn't put yourself in the position of needing them.

BTW its stupid answer like you just used that makes you look like a troll.

Oh dear. Just because you exist in a perfect world, don't assume
everyone else does. I have had neighbours finding themselves with a
battery unable to start their car on a very cold morning and after
some heavy use the day before, asking to borrow a charger or for a
jump start and then as soon as the weather get's warmer they don't
have any further problems. Is that right, probably not, is that what
many people do, of course.


What are you going to do if you have to park on a road with other than a
30mph speed limit which requires parking lights?

Hope you don't need a jump start in the morning?

Why would I I have a proper battery that does what it should,

Does all it should under what circumstances?

if yours
doesn't then get it fixed like a normal person would.

No such thing mate..


I haven't said that it wouldn't drain a faulty battery.

It wasn't a faulty batter, it wasn't a battery at 100%, like many
batteries aren't. It was able to cope with it's *normal* day to day
duties, just not an extreme case, just like many 'not new' batteries
on many perfectly otherwise functional vehicles.

At what point off 100% capacity would you consider a battery to be
cr@p, 50, 75, 99%?

Well the stop start stops working at about 75% so that's faulty.

Interesting. So in colder climes (were it hits -15 DegC) you would be
replacing the battery pretty often then?

No I would do what the manufacturers do and fit a better battery.

What, they fit a better battery in the UK because you might go on
holiday to a cold place?

My point is (and as you say) a battery is a consumable and *will* lose
it's capacity over time. You may well have a strict threshold where
you will buy and fit a new / bigger battery, most people don't. I'm
not saying what thy do is right, just that's how it is in the real
world.


http://support.rollsbattery.com/supp...acid-batteries

Do you think they last forever?

No? Why did you think you needed to ask?

Because you keep stating that they get old and stop doing their job but
are still OK.

They only stop doing 'their job' when that job is outside the normal
requirements.

Ok, your battery would give you say one overnight of parking lights,
but what would you do if you had to be there two or three? Who
determines what is considered acceptable? Does it state in the
handbook, nor many hours you should be able to leave the parking
lights on, and against a range of temperatures and battery ages?


As far as I am concerned you have trolled enough and you cango back to
half brains with someone else.

'Cango', is that d-i-y play-on-words joke? ;-)

So, no answers then?

Cheers, T i m

[1] When I had a company car (support tech) I had an estate, we all
did. When one of the sales boys asked to borrow my car as he was
moving house and offered me his XR3i in return I said 'no thanks'.

I had no use for an XR3i and it didn't have a towbar ... or much
internal space.

He tried to push the fact that it was a Company car and as he was an
employee ... it was explained to him that he had made his choice and
that our cars were not 'pool cars' and were part of our 'package',
(that we paid tax on).

On Thu, 24 Oct 2019 22:40:35 +0100, Ian Jackson
wrote:

snip

I still don't believe a boot light wouldn't have a switch of some sort
though, possibly a gravity one or a micro switch up in the hinges
somewhere?

It was a long time ago, but a works colleague started having flat
battery problems with a Marina.

I had use of a 1.8 Twincam (?) one of those and because it was so
light it was a bit hairy. ;-)

Eventually I had a look, and found that
the boot light switch was a rather crude affair - a large microswitch
(?) mounted on a flimsy bracket, with a plunger that the boot lid pushed
in when it was closed. The bracket had become bent, and the boot lid no
longer contacted the plunger.

Yup, that was the sort of thing I was thinking of and I think I've
dealt with something similar.

Someone had moved a load of garden waste and a stick had gone up
inside the hinge and dislodged the switch.

As a kid I was always fascinated by anything like that (automatic /
hidden controls) ... trying to find out how it worked ... and the more
things you play with the more you learn and then find it's easier to
learn / do parallel things.

Like as a kid I was always playing with batteries, lamps and buzzers
and so had a basic understanding of electricity at an early age. Also
you learned why you only had low wattage lamps in say a cycle dynamo,
as you found when you upgraded the headlight to a more powerful lamp
and then tried to pedal the bike! ;-)

It saddens me that most kids don't seem to be interested in anything
tangible these days, many seeming to be more absorbed in 'social
communication' over a hobby or interest.

We allowed / encourage / introduced our daughter to all sorts of
practical stuff from an early age, from soldering from when she was
about 6 to building her a dolls house together a few years on. Her Mum
wasn't so confident when she would come in and have daughter announce
'look mummy, I'm cutting plywood for the stairs on my dolls house on
daddy's bandsaw'. ;-)

Might be whey in later life she bought herself a chainsaw for carving.
;-)

Cheers, T i m

In article
,
Tim+ wrote:
charles wrote:
In article
,
Tim+ wrote:

Leaving parking lights on overnight is a gamble that most motorists
with real lifetime experience prefer not to take.

There must be a 30mph limit if you want to park without lights. In many
villages there isn't one.

You need then in 30mph zones too if you‘re parked within 10 metres of a
junction (and not in a marked bay).

I‘m not arguing about the legality but the reality is that parking lights
are very rarely used and I‘m willing to bet that *extremely* few people
are going to use them overnight. Can‘t recall the last time I saw
parking lights used by anyone.

I know a number of people who have been fined for parking in a 40mph zone
without lights.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

On 25/10/2019 11:17, NY wrote:
"Tim+" wrote in message
news:833068154.593687643.536542.tim.downie-
Park it for as short a time as possible or park elsewhere! You rarely
*have* to park somewhere where parking lights are required.Â* If you do
have
to then hope you have a good battery.

Leaving parking lights on overnight is a gamble that most motorists with
real lifetime experience prefer not to take.

Where we used to live was on a road with a 40 mph speed limit. The
council were thinking of reducing it to 30 mph, but the residents
decided to leave it at 40 (since they were given the choice) because
with a 30 mph limit, cars are allowed to park facing the direction of
traffic overnight

not legally though, unless its in designated parking bays.

On Fri, 25 Oct 2019 12:46:45 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:

On 25/10/2019 11:17, NY wrote:
"Tim+" wrote in message
news:833068154.593687643.536542.tim.downie-
Park it for as short a time as possible or park elsewhere! You rarely
*have* to park somewhere where parking lights are required.* If you do
have
to then hope you have a good battery.

Leaving parking lights on overnight is a gamble that most motorists with
real lifetime experience prefer not to take.

Where we used to live was on a road with a 40 mph speed limit. The
council were thinking of reducing it to 30 mph, but the residents
decided to leave it at 40 (since they were given the choice) because
with a 30 mph limit, cars are allowed to park facing the direction of
traffic overnight

not legally though, unless its in designated parking bays.

I'm with you on that one.

We live on a 30 mph backstreet and on our small row of houses, where
*everone* used to park the right way round. The next door neighbour
parked the wrong way round the day he came to view the house (20+
years ago) and has parked the wrong way round ever since (I asked him
why the other day (and that was his reason, because he did it on day
one ... ?[1]). As the older people have moved out and younger people
have moved in and from possibly areas where parking is much more
difficult, many don't seem to care which way round they park, even
though we now don't have streetlights after midnight (if being 'lit'
has any impact legally)?

I just seems wrong for me to park the wrong way round, night or day
and so I rarely do so (unless trying to align the back of my car to an
gate / door for loading / unloading etc).

Cheers, T i m

[1] We hold a spare key for his house and car and I have moved his car
on occasion when he was at work and workers needed access to the road
where his car was parked etc (with his permission, I'm insured 3rd
party on any other car etc). When I parked it I parked it the right
way round but he didn't get the hint, only parking it back the wrong
way when using it next. ;-(