The day we arrived at our Saugatuck cottage, I took several trips carrying everything down to the riverfront rental, locking the car behind me in the parking lot. After about one and a half hours, we headed out to drive to the downtown area to look for a restaurant. We buckled up in our car and I turned the key; and nothing happened! The transmission was locked in park and I couldn’t get the key out of the ignition. No power anywhere! I began looking around to see what may have drained a perfectly good battery in only 90 minutes. There it was: the GPS glowing brightly! We had forgotten to turn it off. But could that little GPS drain a 12-volt battery so soon?

I read through the Auto Manual and it said that if we connect unauthorized electronic gizmos to the cigarette lighter, we could do serious damage to the electrical system and void our warranty (Oh-oh). It also sounded like it could have been a failure of the security system in this car.

As it turned out, next morning we called a local auto repair place to check it out and they found the battery totally discharged, jumped it, and everything was fine. Apparently a six-year old battery will drain completely down to nothing in 90 minutes after all. Lesson learned, problem solved, and forty bucks out the widow!.

Have you ever been stranded far from home? Tell us about it.

Tags: battery, GPS, stranded