Vehicle Refused to Start

After only having about 3 hours sleep on 20 Jan'07 in the wee morning after my Friday night drive, I woke up at 6am as usual on Saturday. (Usually, I would drive longer hours on Fridays, Saturdays and eves of Public holidays as there are more merry makers on these days) As I opened the door of my cab I found to my horror I couldn't start it. The battery is near flat. I could jump start the cab if I can push it to the edge of the slope where I parked my cab. I have this habit of taking precautions just in case something like this happen. Lucky for me, the cab is a manual transmission. I pushed and pushed and God, it was real heavy. I think it weigh something like 1.5 to 1.6tons. As I pushed the cab, 2 guys walked pass and stared at me. I was hoping that they would help me push to jump start the cab, but no, they gave me a pathetic look and go on their way. My fault. Because I didn't open my golden mouth. But hey, I am near breatheless. If I see anyone in the same situation that I am in, I will without fail offer my help without being asked. At that moment, I was literally struggling to push it with all my might as I tried to steer the cab towards the top edge of the slope. In my younger days, I would have no problem pushing it. I am now in my 50's and is slowly losing my physical strength as the years move on. The steering wheel is also real heavy without the power steering. I refused to give up despite the fact that I am losing my stamina and strength quickly and finally managed to get it to the top of the slope. With a final look at the downslope, I turned on the ignition key and give it a last full-bodied push and quickly jumped into the driver's seat as it gained speed down the slope. I depress the clutch, engaged into 2nd gear and let go of the clutch. The engine sprung to life. Oh, the sweet beautiful sound of the purring engine. As I pant and try to catch my breathe, I drove off slowly with the aircon switched off. This will allow the battery to charge faster. I manage to make 9 trips after that.

Later on, I sms my partner and told him of the problem and that I will be sending it to Sin Ming workshop for checking. On reaching there, the mechanic checked and told me, "Wah, Uncle, you never check the battery water one is it?" "Hah! I thought you guys will check it when you carry out the monthly servicing?" "No! You have to check it yourself." I now realised that Comfort is unlike private workshops where the mechanic will carry out multiple checks on the vehicles and top up whatever fluids if necessary. Life must be easy for the mechanics.

Kind of stupid of me though for not checking it in the first place. Later, as I refuelled for the impending handing over of shift to my partner, I bought 2 bottles of battery water. I opened the battery caps and found that the battery is indeed dry, (now this is dangerous as it may possibly explode if I continue driving it without battery water). I emptied the 2 bottles and found that it is still insufficient. I bought another 2 bottles and only then it is just enough to fill it to the maximum recommended level.

Now this is the first time in my 31 years of driving that I have actually top up a battery with 4 bottles of battery fluid. I suspect that the battery is of inferior quality. Today, I checked the battery level and found that the fluid level had gone down a bit and it is not normal as I had only topped it up on 20 Jan'07. The lubrication oil is also below the minimum level (something to be concerned of), despite the fact that this vehicle is only about 4 to 5 months old. Well, I have to be more careful in future about this issue.

Cheers.