Just so you know… I have the strangest car troubles right now.

This has been going on for a few weeks now.  I am pretty sure it has to do with the cold weather, but not completely sure.  I have a 1996 Honda Civic with over 250K miles on it.  Great car, I love it.  But lately the battery (as far as I can tell) is going all funky monkey on me.  The skinny of it is, my car won’t start.  On the special occasions that the car wants to be difficult, I will go out to the car, put the key in the ignition, push the clutch to the floor and turn the key.  For a normal car you’d hear VROOM!  But for me… click… nothing… silence.  If I turn the key again, not even a click.  I think I used all the juice my battery had to offer making that click.

But are you ready for the tidbit that really puts the funk in that monk?  After the car won’t start, all I have to do is open one of the backdoors and slam it shut.  As long as I have the driver side door open, the dome light will come on and a little bit of juice will have returned to the car.  Most of the time I will then be able to turn the key, hear the VROOM and be on my way.  But sadly, not tonight.

You see, Cincinnati just got hit by what is apparently being called by a Facebook ad, ‘White Death’ (see image at end of post).  We got covered by 11 inches of snow with a few inches of ice somewhere in the middle.  And I being one who thinks ahead …ehem… realized that tomorrow morning at 7am would not be fun timing to scrape all that off my car.  So I attempted to do this tonight (at 11pm).  The car got cleaned off pretty easily, but when I went to start it, nothing.  I slammed each of the front doors to find that the dome light did nothing.  I slammed each of the back doors, the dome light turning on after each door slam.  But it must not have been enough juice to get the cold engine running.  I’m wondering, now that I’m back up in the nice warm and dry apartment, if slamming the door is like turning a crank.  If I slam the door 5 times, maybe that’ll generate enough juice to get the car up and running?

Who knows…

I decided it would be best to let the car rest tonight, out from under the ice and snow.  But again, thinking about it, maybe I should have left the ice and snow covering the car, isn’t that how igloos provide warmth?  I probably just made the car even colder.  Oh well, here’s to hoping I can make it to work tomorrow!

Cheers

[caption id=”attachment_373” align=”aligncenter” width=”166” caption=”White Death according to WCPO”][/caption]