VZ SSZ Commodore - Potentially Scary - Holden - Whirlpool Forums

OK I am posting this for people's information and to remind them the importance of battery maintenance, and to get people who look at your car to check!!

Wife calls me at work this morning, had bundled toddlers in the car, but car wouldn't start – engine not turning over. Impossible to diagnose with a non car savvy wife on the other end of phone, so tell her call the RAC. Next phone call is she is in the middle of a 3 lane road in the middle of the CBD, some 60 km up the freeway from home with a dead car in a panic.

RAC jumpstarted her at home, did nothing but see the engine was running and departed. Wife drove to daycare centre, drops kids off and car is dead again – lights come on but wont turn over engine – somebody helpfully jump starts her and she is on her way again. Drives to within a couple of km of her office and slowing down for traffic lights and car cuts out completely in middle of road – no warning etc – luckily going slow and she instictively jammed the brake pedal on hard as brake boost evaporates. Thats when I get the second call.

RAC arrives with spare battery after I called them. Hook up one of those awesome battery boosters and start the car – all ok. He runs the meter across the battery and the battery (3 ½ years old) is stuffed. Apparently this is common fault – the computer in the car tries to compensate for alternator/voltage irregularity but when a battery has a dead cell then the variances can get outside of what is acceptable to the computer and it shuts everything down.

This happened at low speed and no kids in car. Due to delays my wife was late for work so freeway was clear and 100 km/h most of the way. If this had happened at speed it woudl not have been pretty. Now I didn't think to qualify the RAC guys opinion but he stated that this generation of commodore does this as do "other late model cars".

Note for Commodore owners – the idle level is shot (as happens on Jeeps as well) when this kind of computer shutdown happens, just drive the car for 5 minutes and it will sort itself out (we just put the AC on whilst in stop start traffic).