It looks like my plan to stay in West Valley this weekend is shot. Me and the family went to Wal-Mart to pick up a prescription for Bradley, but when I tried starting the Mazda on our way to leave, it wouldn’t turn over. All I got was a single click, and the tachometer bounced a bit for some reason. The dome light was really dim and the headlights wouldn’t light up at all, not even really dim. I assumed it was a dead battery, so Traci called her mom (the only one with enough car seats to pick us up without having to move ours) and she took us home.
When I got home, I hooked up a spare battery to the charger, then after awhile Traci and I took my truck back to Wal-Mart while my mom watched the kids. I first tried just hooking up the battery I brought with me to the Mazda with some jumper cables, but it didn’t do a damned bit of good. I don’t completely trust my battery charger, so I figured that maybe it hadn’t charged that battery at all. There weren’t any open parking spaces next to the Mazda, and I didn’t want to block the main aisle with my truck in order to try jump-starting it, but there were two empty spots in the next row over. Luckily, I had pulled the Mazda through another spot to park in the spot I was in, so I could roll forward into one of the empty spots, then I moved my truck next to it. But hooking up jumper cables didn’t work at all–I still couldn’t get the dome light to brighten up or any other electrical accessory to work.
At this point, I’m pretty sure it’s just a bad battery cable. I’m going to return tonight around when the store closes, and hopefully the parking lot will have emptied out enough to try a push-start. If that fails, I guess I’ll be towing it home with my truck. When I eventually get it home, I’ll have to start tracking down all the cables running from the battery terminals (there are seven of the damned things) in the hopes that one of them is bad and can be easily replaced. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll have to start looking at more expensive things, like the battery, alternator, voltage regulator, starter solenoid, etc., but I doubt any of those are giving me this problem due to the dome light not brightening up when hooking up the jumper cables.
So, instead of spending tomorrow getting ready to head up to Mike’s, I’ll spend it working on the Mazda. And since I expect that replacing the battery cables will be a piece of cake, my usual bad luck (or is it just karma?) will kick in and it’ll take me all weekend.