Help Me!!
Created May 26, 2007, at 9:19 pm by altahy
I am new Altama Hybrid owner. I have only had the car a week but I love it already. Here's my problem - I was warned that the car is so quiet that people accidentally leave it on. Well - I think I did! I returned to my car after attending a 12 hour bus trip and found that the only electric things working were my headlights, radio, and A/C - no display panel at all! Did I leave the car on? I'm not sure. The question is where do I go from here? My dealer is closed for the night and will be closed tomorrow. There's always Sears, but can I trust them with my car? Any advice would be welcome!!
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Go to section 6-7 of your owner's manual and see if that will help.
It explains how to determine if your 12V battery has gone dead - how to try an emergency start - and how to do a jump start on the battery.
I'm not sure you can leave the car in the ready mode after you open the door and walk away with the key.
It's Sunday and my dealer is closed. I talked to Sears and they advised me not to take it anywhere else BUT my dealer. I plan to call them first thing in the morning. I'll post later with the results.
The resolution of my problem was simple - operator error. I took the car to my dealer and they ran full diagnostics on all the electrical and hybrid systems. They found no problems or unexpected drains on the systems. It was simply left on and the batteries drained out. Here's two thing I learned: 1) It takes a special "trickle" battery to recharge the hybrid, so take it to your dealer to be safe. 2) As soon as you put the car in park, turn it off! I practice the mantra "park, off; park,off" evertime I get in the car. I have to say - I still love my hybrid!!:)
I had a similar experience when I first got my Hybrid. I parked it in my driveway overnight thinking that I had shut it off but when I returned to it in the morning I discovered that I had left it on all night. I'm guessing that it simply cycled through using the battery until it ran down and then turning on the engine to charge the battery, over and over.
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