Oh joy, more car problems

[unixronin]

Last Tuesday, I conclusively diagnosed the ignition problem on the Mercedes.  On Thursday, the parts I ordered on Tuesday arrived, and I installed them and verified the problem was fixed.  On Friday, the Mercedes got four badly-needed new tires, and yesterday it got a four-wheel alignment at the Mercedes dealer.¹  Today, cymrullewes drove it to work instead of the Intrepid.

Which is just as well, because when I drove up to Bedford with Wen the Eternally Surprised for some needed shopping from Lowes Hardware and Target, the Intrepid all but stranded us there.  We came out of Target, unlocked the doors with the remote, got into the car, turned on the ignition, and lost all electrical power.  Everything was dead... except, oddly enough, the oil-pressure light.  I spent about ten minutes futzing with it trying to get it to start, then took Wen and walkesd down to Lowes, did my shopping there, came back, and it still wouldn't start.  I was eventually able to get it started with a jump-start, so we headed for home.  As we left the parking lot, the ABS system failure warning light came on.  About a mile later, coming down 3, so did the charging system failure light.  The interior lights kept flickering on and off on their own.  We made it home, pulled into the garage, and discovered that we had no head or tail lights either and that all of the trunk electrics were out.  I turned the engine off, went to try to start it again, and the entire electrical system totally collapsed again.  Once again, nothing worked but the oil pressure warning light.

Looks to me like the succession of niggling electrical-system glitches we've had almost as long as we've had the car has finally cascaded into a system-wide electrical failure.  As cymrullewes commented, "It looks as though replacing the Intrepid² has just become urgent."  Which is Bad, because we don't have enough financial reserves yet that I'm really comfortable doing so.

But as the saying goes, "Needs must when the devil drives."

[1]  During the course of which we discovered that some time soon, it needs $1500 worth of front suspension work.

[2]  We're hoping to be able to find a 2002 or 2003 Volvo XC70 in Polar Arctic Blue.  If we manage to do so, it'll be named "Eisbär" ("ice bear", the polar bear).

Comments

[midiamin.livejournal.com]

I don't know the history of the Intrepid, but have you already checked the basic low-hanging fruit? Specifically, I'd check the battery connections and have the battery itself checked, then maybe the charging system. Some cars get pretty wonky when the battery starts going out even if the car is running (especially, say, a dodgy connection between cells), and I'm sure you know cold plays hell on batteries. After that, a quick check of the fusible links; that's getting less likely, but hey, it's cheap and the hood's already open.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The battery's only a year old. It's had a history of electrical problems since it was about a year old, though. Some of what's going on now -- the flickering interior lights, the trunk electrics -- is just those same old problems recurring.