My girlfriend's car has been having issues for a good while now. Usually, when the car would sit for several days the car wouldn't start, dead battery. A simple jump and it would run fine, it could sit a day or two after driving and still start fine... but after 3 days, there's no hope without a jump. She has... err had... some subs and an amp and we thought that was the problem... so we pulled the fuse and completely took it off the charging system. It was still happening, come to find out her battery had a dead cell in it. We went out and bought an optima red top (this was about 2 years ago)... we hooked the system back up and drove home... when the battery was dead the next morning we couldn't understand why... we found out later that her capacitor was drawing constant current... so we took that out and ran straight to the amp but disconnected the system completely again... and the car was fine for a long, long time with the system disconnected, so to see if it was the system definitely causing it, we hooked it back up and it worked fine still... until fairly recently. after we started noticing problems again i immediately took the fuse out again and all was well, so we figured it was definitely the system, so we left it unhooked... after a long weekend and the car sat for 4 days, it was dead again... the only other thing i can figure is it's the aftermarket alarm/remote start system she has. i come to this conclusion because her mom had the car for several years before she got it, and never had a problem. the only "mods" to the car are the system and the alarm... i figure it's not the system, but the battery was dying faster when the system was hooked up simply because the battery wasn't at full charge once the car was turned off because of the strain on it from the system... so it died "quicker"... so i am 99% sure it's the alarm...
here's where it turns ugly... the system is a Code Alarm, purchased and installed at circuit city (i worked there at the time)... it was installed once by a guy who's colorblind... great... he couldn't figure it out, so guy #2 steps in, and can't figure it out because there was no info on the 2002 chrysler sebring in their install program... but he owned a 2001 mitsu eclipse and figured it was the same type of deal... wrong, the color codes between mitsu and chrysler, even though the cars are identical everywhere else, are different... in steps guy #3... with a voltmeter he tests every individual wire and it takes him about 3 days of working on it to get it all done... great, yippee, yay
now circuit city warranties their installs forever... but this was several years ago and none of the 3 gentlemen who have ever worked on this car work there anymore, nor do they sell code alarm anymore... so as far as taking it back to them to get checked on, we're screwed
on top of other problems, this is the most frustrating... but in the end we'll be getting rid of this car when we can...
now, my question... and i know this will only be a band-aid, so don't give me the lecture
i've looked into solar panels for a few things i was going to do in my celica so i've done a little research on them... but, knowing my girlfriend, she doesn't want this thing to be sitting on her dash all the time... she's slightly OCD... so, i'd like to hardwire it, which shouldn't be too difficult. but i've seen some that say "make sure solar panel is disconnected before starting the vehicle to prevent damage, etc, etc" and other that say "built in diode to prevent reverse charging"
i'm assuming i'd want one with the diode, and i could just hardwire (+) to (+) and (-) to (-) on ANY wire in the car, and it would work, would it not? then i could lay it in the back window, rather than having it sitting on the dash, and she could just leave it there and it would recharge the battery every day... or am i completely off on this?
here's where it turns ugly... the system is a Code Alarm, purchased and installed at circuit city (i worked there at the time)... it was installed once by a guy who's colorblind... great... he couldn't figure it out, so guy #2 steps in, and can't figure it out because there was no info on the 2002 chrysler sebring in their install program... but he owned a 2001 mitsu eclipse and figured it was the same type of deal... wrong, the color codes between mitsu and chrysler, even though the cars are identical everywhere else, are different... in steps guy #3... with a voltmeter he tests every individual wire and it takes him about 3 days of working on it to get it all done... great, yippee, yay
now circuit city warranties their installs forever... but this was several years ago and none of the 3 gentlemen who have ever worked on this car work there anymore, nor do they sell code alarm anymore... so as far as taking it back to them to get checked on, we're screwed
on top of other problems, this is the most frustrating... but in the end we'll be getting rid of this car when we can...
now, my question... and i know this will only be a band-aid, so don't give me the lecture
i've looked into solar panels for a few things i was going to do in my celica so i've done a little research on them... but, knowing my girlfriend, she doesn't want this thing to be sitting on her dash all the time... she's slightly OCD... so, i'd like to hardwire it, which shouldn't be too difficult. but i've seen some that say "make sure solar panel is disconnected before starting the vehicle to prevent damage, etc, etc" and other that say "built in diode to prevent reverse charging"
i'm assuming i'd want one with the diode, and i could just hardwire (+) to (+) and (-) to (-) on ANY wire in the car, and it would work, would it not? then i could lay it in the back window, rather than having it sitting on the dash, and she could just leave it there and it would recharge the battery every day... or am i completely off on this?
