So a few months ago I bought a brand new battery from NTB. It was the EXIDE 72 Month, and worked great; also a few months ago I changed both the belts on the car as well. The hiccup, I couldn't figure out why the tensioner would seem to loosen or tighten belts in a weird way. So finally I gave up on the belts, seeing they were installed left it be. After a few weeks the belts start squealing at startup.

Well recently a friend who borrowed my car started calling me at weird hours of the night, telling my car was broken on the side of the road. I was like wtf? it has never done this to me before why all of a sudden now. So today going to rescue him, and fed up with his calls, I was like I know my car, and it is quite possibly just the driver not knowing how to handle the lancer. I get out there, and to start it, it sounds like it needs a jump. I get a jump, and drive off a few miles down the road, and the fun begins.

The Cluster would randomly turn on and off, the rpm gauge would jump from 0 to 3500 rpms, and do crazy *** **** before dropping to zero. Soon after the speedometer would react the same way. Shortly after the whole set would shut off. Sometimes the radio would turn on and off randomly, and spit out the CD in the headunit, or the AC would come on and off. If I had the blinker on, it would speed up like 80 blinks in 20 seconds, as if the car was totally possessed. If that wasn't it, the car when starting up would normally light up the cluster to run the pre-diag system test. The lights are supposed to be turned off. Not now, heh, this thing would randomly turn on and off lights. I was scared because that SRS light came on, and if I got into a accident, there is no telling what it would've done. Really crazy ****. If i was on the expressway, and doing 60 the car would shut the cluster off, and the transmission would downshift through the gears until I would come to a stop. I swear I thought that transmission was going to fall out the bottom of the car.

Anyways, everytime I stalled, I would stop and have to get a jump to get the car started again. I finally had someone follow me with a set of cables, in the distance of what would normally take 30 mins to travel took us 2 1/2 hrs to do so. We figured out that the longer we left the lancer on the cables the longer we could before stalling out.

So finally I arrive at the dealership, lost about 20 pounds in shear water mass; I goto the head tech and begin explaining my problems to him. He tells me listen as much as you want to believe it may be your ECU, the car is in fact doing what it is supposed to be doing, that transmission is downshifting because the battery is cutting the fuel to the injectors. This was greek to me, as I didn't know AUTOs could be this smart, either way, I felt the car was just out to kill me or something. He asked where I bought the battery from, and told me the nearest NTB to the dealership. He also said go there, have them look at it, as it may be a short in your system, and they'll be able to diagnose the issue for free, where as at the dealership to even look at it would be 400 dollars.

So going to the NTB, a jump later, I pull in, and lucky me I see a EVO, yes a lancer owner, someone who might know my car for what it is. I walk in, and I see the asian, I know its his. So I go straight to him, and described what was happening, and his reply was holy ****, did you run over a pulse gun or something. I was like, umm no. Anyways he was like sure we'll take a look at it; after running through the tests, we are looking through my amp kit, and everything. They're telling it could possibly be the amp in the car, I'm like no it has been in for two years now, and never caused any problems; and even pointed out how I removed the fuse from the power wire, and the remote wires off the caps, and amps. They're not on, and even more so, they're not in the loop for the power system, its independent. So while we are both under the hood bashing our heads on the valve head, the tech looks down and asks where my alt belt is... Stupefied I reply; err it was there three days ago, I know it was because it was squeaking at me. And laughing at myself I reply now that I think about it, it hasn't squeaked at today with all the jumps we done.

So they rip the battery out test it, and tell me it has two dead cells, and the others are marginal. They were shocked the battery even lasted as long as it did. NTB upgraded my battery from 72 months to 84 months, and charged me the difference, which came out to 37 dollars and some change. And saying to me I need that belt, or else the car will only last about a day and one night on it. They charge me for the labor to put the cable on the car. Needless to say I was shocked to find out that a stupid belt would cause this much of a issue with a car.

I have never once in my life seen a car react this way with no battery charge; so if your car is running off the battery, you might want to have that thing looked at. I happened to luck out that a lancer owner worked at the NTB, who knew the car intimately, and knew his ****.

And looking back, because the car was running off the battery, it would make sense that the longer we kept it on the cables the longer it ran.

Thanks for your time, and reading my post. You can laugh at me now

 

Seems like a scene from the Exorcist! Hope all is well now...