Rookie question -- check engine light "inspect battery"

Lucky I have AAA, with the fancy version that gives me 100 miles of towing. I can have the car towed to the dealer.

So I think I've got my questions answered. The diagnosis is possibly off, but it sure sounds right to me.

Many many thanks to all of you. This is new territory for me and the guidance has been good.

God Bless Us All.
SonOfEru

 

Good. I will be glad if it's right.

BTW, is that a regular descriptor -- limpy acceleration?

 

Well, it's a really good term, clear in its meaning.

And I take it you completed U of T training since you used it.

And thanks again, you've been a big help in this.

 

So where did you get all of what you've got?. Wiki University? The School of Greasy Hands and Busted Knuckles?

 

And a further input that makes it sound like inverter not battery.

I mentioned in my first post that his mom is the owner of record just now, and he is buying it from her on monthly installments. She told me last night that she bought it used, and before buying she had some kind of test done of the battery condition. She said the test indicated 70%, though I can't remember now 70% of what -- 70% of the original power? 70% of its original lifespan remaining? In any case it gave her confidence in buying it.

So I'm hoping it means the battery was not at death's door. But things die for reasons other than scheduled failure.

 

I also sorta wondered how she tested it and how reliable the test might be.

But let me back up and ask again - how did you get to know all you know, if not by way of Toyota U? I'm interested because

<you can skip the rest if you want>

everything I know about ICE's I learned by doing (and I learned "limpy acceleration" and "ICE" here). I graduated from an elite college without knowing anything about cars. Then my first car of my own was a VW bug, and that was was at the height of my hippie days. I was getting interested in all those New Age ideas, like back to the land, grow your own food, learn to fix things yourself, all of that. And I learned to do my own simple maintenance - change my own oil, check my own timing, adjust my own valves. That was all so much fun. And then my bug started leaking oil. I hunted for that leak for so long, while topping it up every day. Finally I found the leak (in a place I hadn't learned about yet) and fixed it myself, and I was so proud. But I quit checking the oil every day. Turns out I had TWO leaks, and soon I burned up the engine. And THEN I decided to rebuild it myself, bought all the parts, borrowed someone's garage, borrowed cars here and there as needed (I was working at home, doing stained glass). When it as all done, I turned the key and it started right up! And ran for many thousands of miles after.

So that's where my question was coming from. At some point my life took a different direction and I began to let my mechanic fix my cars. If you're still here, thanks for your interest. And if you care to respond, "25 words or less" will do.

 

So there's more than one?

I've long thought that we are an interesting species.

I did make that mistake. It was long after graduation that I began to see value in a lot of the courses that I took just because I had to take them to satisfy some requirement.

And the ICE thing. You will note that I didn't stumbled with the redundancy issue. That one is new to me, and I can see how it's convenient in a lengthy post in a forum, but yes, I am well familiar with that kind of oddity. And I've spent 10 minutes or so trying to think up this one particular familiar instance of it, one which is utterly common, but at my age now, another utterly common thing is to go blank trying to recall something that's as common as water but I've lost the handle for it. That's the one thing (so far) that really bothers me about this aging thing. And when it does pop through the brain fog, it's just so curious - how could I have not been able to find it?

Anyway, thanks all of you, for the good advice and the patience of helping me out with it. And I've run on and on today -- my wife is away for a long visit to the grandkids and I have no one to talk to for a while.

All right, enough.

 

Just for fun, what other shibboleths are there?

Unless they are not fun to mention . . . .

I can be curious about lots and lots of things, not just how some gizmo works.

 

shibbolethy? Did you mean shibbolethistic?

And I probably won't be around here after this adventure, although with a 12 year old car, I might need help on the grandson's behalf another time. He's super smart, but it's in software and design areas, not clanking mechanical stuff.

And my own interest is over at Tacoma World, where they are also really knowledgeable and helpful. I've had nothing but Tacomas (Tacomae?) for 35 years now. And when I lost my beloved 2002 early in the year, I went right out and bought a new one. But it was sad. I had 270,000 miles on it, and it still ran smoothly, but the state of NH said I couldn't drive it on public roads any more. The inspecting mechanic said he could have put his fist through the frame. Rust and tooth decay can be delayed but hard to delay forever. I have a lot of crowns.

I like the new one well enough, but I wish they still had a stick shift option, outside of the models in the upper versions, the sport packages and all that. I just didn't want to spend that high.