The wife and I went to the drive-in last night, we've been to it lots of times. I get the feeling modern cars are becoming less compatible with them.
First off, this was the first time I'd driven the truck there. Remembered that in accessory mode, it times out after 10 minutes, and since you need the radio, that's not going to work out. And even while it's in accessory mode, the dash is all lit up. Wife wanted the A/C, so I left the engine running so we had A/C and to avoid running the battery down, but the DRLs were on. Remembered that I can turn them off through the radio settings, so all the lights were off. Not surprisingly, lots of folks had trouble turning their lights off, and they give you a how-to sheet on the way in that covers most vehicles.
Throughout the 2 movies (Indiana Jones/The Boogeyman), folks' lights kept turning on. A lady in a late model Chevy Equinox next to us took some time to figure out how to turn off her lights, and those kept turning on at odd times. Getting ready to leave, my wife said she thinks that same lady now has a dead battery. Sure enough, she walks up to my window and asks if I can give her a jump Drat, my cables are still in the Pilot! Thankfully, someone else had cables, but I offered to stay and help. First surprise, she can't get her key out of the ignition. Next, her running lights are on and turning the headlight control won't turn them off.
The good samaritan with the cables pulled up, and she couldn't figure out how to open her hood. Ditto for the one with the dead battery.
Guess it's a good thing I stuck around and had a flashlight in the glovebox. Hooked up the rather lightweight cables, and... Nothing. Not even a spark. Wiggled the cables, still no spark. Noticed that one wire on these rather dinky cables was fraying at the clamp. Uh oh. Wiggled them again, finally got some spark, but can't get more than a click from the solenoid, and the running lights are still stuck on. Even when we waited a few minutes to see if it would charge the battery some we got nothing.
Finally, we noticed there was somebody in the closed concession stand, and I remembered they had a jumper pack. Flagged him down, and he brought it out. Apparently it just needed more oomph than the iffy cables from the good samaritan, but we got her car started.
I'm just kind of amazed that while it still had enough juice to show signs of life, it had no control over the lights and the key was stuck. It's too bad that auto manufacturers seem to be bent on having the dashboards all lit up at all times, and they have to make it unusually difficult to turn all the exterior lights off. And apparently the batteries don't have lots of capacity.
And yes, I got a new set of jumper cables to keep in the truck
tin foil hats
