I don’t need to name my car yet
The 146’s battery died yesterday morning. I managed to unlock the car with the remote but when I turned the ignition, I realized my battery was flat.
146 at johor house
Originally uploaded by jaremfan.
The weird thing was that it wasn’t giving any signals the night before, and I wondered whether my frenzied driving to and fro KLIA had anything to do with it.
I was reluctant to leave the Alfa in its current state, but I had to. I took the Kelisa instead to work, and admired its nimbleness. As I breezed in and out of traffic, I thought about the maintenance worries I’ve had to bear with the Alfa. Would it be worse if I was driving a Swift Sport or a Bimmer?
Worried that the battery could be a symptom of something worse, I rushed to a workshop and picked up a DIN55 battery for RM200.
It took me awhile to replace the battery, as the nut was in a hard place. Thankfully the car started. I started it again just to be sure. Everything seemed to be working, although I wasn’t sure that my rear fog lights were supposed to be alive on both sides or just one. A bulb could have blown.
As I was preparing to leave, I realized that my remote wasn’t working - the doors weren’t centrally locking. Ugh. I’ve heard of problems related to folks not being able to operate their alarms and central locking after a battery replacement.
I got headaches going through the manuals again and again. The forums didn’t help much. There were folks who had to go out and replace the entire alarm system, which cost a bit of money. I didn’t want to end up there.
I prayed to God that the remote would be okay the next day, and went to bed.
Thankfully, my remote did work after all, and I did manage to unlock and lock my doors centrally. My drive to work and back was such a joy, it was almost as if the whole battery episode made the experience of owning an Alfa even more special.
I wouldn’t want a repeat, though. I just hope that I don’t have some odd leak somewhere that will cause my new battery to fail earlier than it should.
Everything should be back to normal, I hope.
Tagged as 146, alfa romeo, cars + Categorized as discoveries/cars