Those stupid delay dome lights in vehicles

The Romans occasionally referred to this phenomenon with the Latin phrase "memoria praeteritorum bonorum", which translates into English roughly as "the past is always well remembered"

We had a very nice car in the 70s. Very nice indeed. Some contributors seem to confuse most cars being not too good with all cars being not too good.

NT

It might have been nice for its time but compared to today?

Nope. You're either too young or have no memory.

compared to most cars today it's a very nice car. Not everything is junk that loses all value.

NT

To you. I mean that's OK, we don't all have the same priorities.

Wrong, look it up. They got the suspension pretty much figured by then, the y did detune the engines for emissions but that was more for political reas ons. They could have made the older engines run clean. I could tell if an e ngine is running right by smelling the exhaust.

So cars are plastic these days. Happy now ? Be happy when the miniframe breaks in half, or the wheels fall of along with their A frame and nifty independent suspension, taking half your brake lines with them.

Bullshit.

Except it doesn't happen.

Nonsense. They were still rustbuckets built by union-controlled companies, by union thugs.

I've seen this problem. For one reason or other, something gets plugged into the OBD2 connector. Very few of these devices (data loggers, ELM327 boxes, virtual dashboards, performance optimizers, etc) have an on/off switch or timeout timer. So, they're on all the time and will run a battery down overnight. It happened to me with one of these: I thought it might be defective, so I tried a different brand. Same problem with the added bonus of becoming rather hot. Allegedly, it's only a 45 ma draw, but considering how hot it became, methinks it's much higher, or might be turning on one of the black boxes.

One that does have an on/off switch and timeout timer is: I've had it for a week, but haven't had time to try it. It seems better built than most. Product Features: Safe to leave plugged in, won't drain your car's battery.

only a 45 ma draw, but considering how hot it became, methinks it's much higher, or might be turning on one of the black boxes. "

Oh, you didn't get the memo ? That is the IPITWE rating.

Idle Power If The World Ends.

It is like the opposite of stereo power ratings which are now PIPILS.

Peak Instantaneous Power If Lightning Strikes

Now you know why the have to charge at almost 16 volts when cold, if they s tart. And BTW, a car can now have a battery low and crank just fine but not start. I had it happen. It can actually run the starter but not all the co ils, injectors and fuel pump to keep running. It was a 1987 Buick LeSabre. I liked that car. We put an engine in it and drove it for years until the e ngine fell out. Yeah, certain things rust and when it happens you hear a th ud, and then the steering might get tight. Keep going and the other side gi ves way and the rack pulls off the steering column and the wheel just spins while the car goes any which a way it damn well pleases. I had that happen . At least I didn't hit anything.

Early 70's was when the first Japanese made definitely not rust buckets with amazingly long warranties started appearing in the UK. ISTR they had perfected a waterproof polymer seal internal to all body metalwork and a tougher one for the underside. This was in a period where certain Italian models would rust through before they even left the forecourt.

We still ended up with a Ford as my dad didn't believe the Japanese spares would be easily available or cost effective. What he hadn't anticipated was that Japanese production cars almost never go wrong.

Bits used to drop off Fords with monotonous regularity but they were really quite reliable when compared to British Leyland lemons.

About then (post Apollo) as mechanical seals gained wider acceptance cars stopped dribbling their vital fluids onto the floor and things got a whole lot easier. You didn't have to spend every other weekend tinkering with it to keep it running any more as was needed in the 60's.

everything was reliable compard to BL's lemons, even a rusted out lawnmower held together with string. It's a real crazy company that kept selling the lemons instead of fixing the obvious problems & rereleasing it in better f ormat. The only mystery is why they didn't go bankrupt sooner.

NT

Metromile Insurance requires us to plug in a ODB2 logger; so they can monitor our driving. With GPS and GSM running all the time, battery won't last more than a few days. I am going to carry a jump starter when i need to drive.

a logger that drain the battery in a few days?, that is just silly

it should be in sleep mode when the car isn't moving

It updates Geo data every few minutes, to make sure the car is not moving.

other trackers can use the accelerometer for that

State Farm sells such a system as "Safe and Save": Despite State Farm's attempts to obscure the cost and rate discount, I was able to determine that it wasn't worth the effort. However, they offered to give it to me for 30 days for free, so I tried it. Near dead battery (car won't start) in 2 days. I gave it back.

I haven't checked yet, but I think the OBD2 device has a separate fuse on the fuse panel. If that's the case, it should be quite easy to install and on/off switch or just rewire the power to the ignition switch. Plenty of articles online on how to deal with the power problem:

Also, be sure to check the version number of your ELM327 chip: I bought some modules that I thought were the latest and greatest, only to find that they emulated much older versions. Never mind what the label on the box says, the app runs tests all the commands to check what the device can do.