8 Maniac

iTrader: (1)

my friend's car keeps dying cause the headlights stay on for some reason and then drain the battery. I've had to give her a jump a couple of times now. My first question is if there's any problem with jumping a car that often (for both sides).

Now for a solution... they cant really afford to bring it in to be looked at and fixed atm, so I thought they could try pulling the fuse for the headlights when they're getting out. Would there be any issue with pulling the fuse frequently? Another question about that is if the battery should be unplugged for taking out or putting in a fuse. Asking that for 2 reasons... if that's the case, she should probably just unplug 1 terminal of the battery instead. But I forgot the reason why right this second, but they couldnt get the terminal disconnected so that's why they hadnt done that yet. So is the fuse idea viable without having to unplug a terminal of the battery?

Thanks for replies

YaXMaNGTO

Here's the thing... in the long run, its going to be more expensive to keep this up.
You're constantly draining the battery down to nothing, meaning the battery is going to give up quicker, also meaning your charging system and alternator are under more stress, so it will need replacing, etc and so on.

Although it would work, you can't sustain doing the "pull the fuse" thing.

Why not just figure out what's wrong with the damn headlight switch and fix it?

8 Maniac

iTrader: (1)

not sure if it's even the switch... could be a wiring issue or something. It only happens sometimes when they turn the car off, but messing with the headlight switch itself never makes it go off but for turning on it works fine. the car does have some damage so that might have something to do with it. I was mostly just making sure that any advice I give wouldnt be bad advice. I know they cant just keep doing the fuse pulling, but for a couple weeks before they could afford to have the stuff fixed I figured it might be fine. My biggest question was if there's any issue with having the battery still connected while removing or inserting the fuse. For now it seems like the least effort and cost effective...

Mazurfer

Not really........it will be okay short term and is obviouly better than disconnecting the battery every time. Better have some spare fuses as you can blow them sometimes by just putting them in. It's rare, but can happen.

I take it the damage is up front, if so...........then they probably have some funny wiring problem up around the headlights. Where is the damage?

8 Maniac

iTrader: (1)

it wasnt a front impact really so not sure if it's all that problematic. she was backing out of a parking spot at another friend's apartment complex and was really close to the garages on the passenger side. it caught the edge when she backed out and pretty much pulled the bumper off... it stayed on somehow though. it's both headlights that stay on though, and only the passenger side one is loose. it's an older taurus SHO or something like that. I know at the very least it's not the most recent model or maybe the one before that... it's definitely older though, so it doesnt surprise me that she has problems coming up. I was just trying to figure something out since she needs a car to get to work and such and I wont always be free to give her a jump.