I charged my booster pack and tried the car again Tuesday morning. Opening the hood I saw a squirrel jump out. Not good, heh. It turns out that I'd forgotten that my booster pack has a switch on the back for the jumper cables (a realization I came to at 4am Tuesday morning, which left me feeling like a total idiot). Unfortunately, the ~75% left in the booster pack was not enough to start the car but at least it turned on the accessories.
I finally got a jump Wednesday morning and the car started. I proceded to the local GoodYear shop (open at 0730, and relatively close) where they determined that my 10 year old battery was indeed dead. I told them to do the oil change, trans fluid change, and coolant flush previously ascribed by them. Trans change was a PITA because the fluid add point on a 91 (and many years of) Escort with manual trans is the speedometer sensor/sender thing. An old wise mechanic and a pair of vice grips later and they got it out without breaking it (no discount on labor for me holding the flashlight, unfortunately). From said wise mechanic's remarks on said speedo unit, the trans fluid has never been changed. Eh, the fluid still looked somewhat red coming out and no metal chunks/flakes were obvious, so I'm not that worried.
Then, after the new battery was installed, I drove home. The next morning at work, the car wouldn't start (WTF!?!). I heard a faint squeaking from the dash and noted that the fan for the heater/vent was on notch '1'. The booster pack worked fine on the new battery and I was off and running. When I got home I confirmed that the blower for the vent is staying on when the ignition is off. This explains how the old battery was drained over the weekend. So now I must be careful to turn the fan off when I park the car. I've been told by UFies that I should be looking for a stuck relay but I haven't looked at the wiring diagram to figure out where that is so for now I'm just making sure I turn that off. My booster pack is charged (almost overcharged cause I forgot to unplug it when I went to bed yesterday) and I really don't want to deal with this crap again, so I'm paying attention.
Financially, since all of the above cost me nearly $400, I'm waiting till I have $4-5k for a down payment on a new car cause hopefully the crapscort will keep kicking for some time. The next time this thing crosses me though, it's going to be push-pull-or-dragged to my nearest VW dealer and I'mma get me some 09 TDi lovin. 45+ MPG from a new car that's fun to drive? Why yes, I'd like some of that please. Woo turbodiesel!
I'd make some joke about unpimping my auto but if my 91 escort was any less pimped it'd require Flinstones-esque foot movement to keep it going, and it's just barely above that point now.
