Battery dies, battery comes back to life?!

[Shockwave199]

I went to the movies tonight. First time in five years, easily. The movie sucked, btw. And what do I do to make the night all the more memerable? I kill my battery by not turning the headlights fully off. It's pretty easy to do if you're the least bit distracted, actually. The alarm for this is pretty bad- almost cute and musical. Certainly not a head slapping warning, that's for sure. And of course I missed the lights on outside. Not many clues except the little orange parking lights, if you're walking in front of the car, and they can be missed, as evidenced by my schmuckedness. For a while I could not believe this was the culprit. I thought I may have had one of my keyfob buttons being constantly pressed by accident in my coat pocket while in the theature. But that would only wipe out the battery in the keyfob, not take the car down with it.

Anyway, car dark, no nothing, no response, us going nowhere. I call Triple A and get someone on the way to jump me. As I'm waiting, I try to turn the car over occasionaly. It's getting better each time- I'm getting lights! Still no turn over, first nothing, then only ticks. But, then the radio light comes up. Soon the dash comes up and shortly after, the trip mileage comes up with the dash and the engine is trying to turn over! After about thirty minutes, it climbs back to life and the car starts up! This, with the triple A guy within five minutes of me. Figures. It was too short of a ride home, so I let the car idle for 30 minutes in the driveway, turned it off, and it restarted again perfectly.

Now, what gives? All my drained batteries in my driving career ALWAYS needed a jump. This one brings itself back to life! How?!

I defer to the experts...

Thanks.

Dan

[Goobers]

The battery recharges through an alternator. So one possibility is that the alternator is cranking just enough to give it a slight charge. doubtful.

Another possibility is that unlike your other cars, there might not be a massive drain on the battery. Typically, when you're told to jump start a car, you're supposed to shut off as much as you possibly can. It's possible that the Fit has less things that you can't shut off on your own.

I've actually had a few times where the battery drains and can't produce a strong enough charge to start the engine because something was on... but if you leave it alone for a little bit, the battery itself kinda accumulates a little bit of charge, kinda like a "reserve charge" (a bit hard to explain)... and given time it might get enough to start the engine, but if you try to start the engine too many times, you run out of "reserve."

[Shockwave199]

That seems exactly what was going on with me. I guess it didn't hurt that it was only about an hour and a half till I got back to the car. But it was enough time to render the car un-startable and black everything out. I guess it also doesn't hurt that the battery is quite new. But it was really weird that it climbed out of the hole all by itself! Thanks for your thoughts.

Dan

[Krizz]

From WikiAnswers - Can a car battery recharge itself


No, a charge must come from an external source. But it's confusing to some people because a battery can be discharged at the surface of the plates and if the battery is left alone for a few minutes some of the charge deep in the plates will distribute across the medium and you may have a little more charge available.
A battery is simply a chemical storage device for an electrical charge. The charge initially comes from an outside source, such as an alternator, and as long as the materials inside the battery are in good condition, the battery will continue to take and hold a charge. Once the materials start to break down, the battery fails.

Perhaps that's what happened. I've had the same thing happen in my F-150 that gave it's life for my Fit. Just don't count on being able to do it repeatedly.

[Shockwave199]

No, lol- lesson learned! Thanks.

Dan