hello all.

I wanted to share a little story with you about my car. last night on hte way home from work i stopped to pick up a few things, and afet the third stop i came out to my car got in turned the key and NOTHING, TOTALLY DEAD!

Now i never had a warning as to the battery being bad or electrical system having a problem (no warning lights on dash) so First of all do not assume that your warning lights will illuminate prior to a Bad Battery. Second, I had to get a jump start from a guy with a huge new Dodge 4x4 p/u with a big battery, it took about 5 minutes for his truck to charge my battery enough for a jump start. Third, i am driving to my next destination wich is now the closest Auto spply i can find. on the way in traffic my car died at about 40 mph. threw it into neutral and was able to turn on to a side street. got a jump start and when i tried to start to the car with a Toyota Minivan it did not have enough juice to jump my car. Apparnetly turbo volvo 850's use mucho power to turn over and run all the ignition parts. So it was then off the Auto supply again in the minivan. went to Hi Lo Orielly and they only had one battery to fit my car it was damaged (broken handle/vent line), being in a bind i said give me a discount and i will take it, OK 10 dollars off but wait lets test the new battery before i buy it incase it was dropped. Tested battery with in store tester and it was a BAD Battery. OFF to the next Hi lo Orielly, they had a batery, I bought it, put it in, started up the car and went home.

Morals of the story:

1. there is no pre warning for batterys to fail, your car may/will shut down while in traffic leaving you with no power stearing, etc.
BE CARFEFULL.

2. car with a small battery may not be able to jump start a turbo 850!!

3. Check your battry once in a while. this was not the original battery, mu car has 74K miles and is a 97 model. the battery replaced was marked MFG in 10/99 so age is no way to judge the condtion of a battery.

So after 3 hours and $67.34 later it was fixed.

Dan