Dead Battery Follies -Roadster Life in the Big City
March 7, 2006
(updated March 12,2006)
It's been over a month since I took Emmy out for a ride. Since I live in Manhattan, where only the craziest people keep cars, I only get to see my car when the nice people at the garage bring her to me.

They are very nice people, and they are nice to Emmy and to me, and I am very nice to them.

As a little aside to you, and aside from paying and tipping the garage people, I also always bring the seat down and back as far as possible so that the larger attendants might have a little easier time getting in and out, I also place a white rag on the inside driver's door pocket to discourage the attendants from scuffing it (it works btw), shut off the Traffic Pro, disconnect and remove the iPod,

and unscrew the rear aerial antenna so that they can put the car cover back on it. They are really nice to put that car cover on. It's filthy by the time they take it off again, covered in the dust and exhaust grit that otherwise would coat my car, and all that muck gets all over their white shirt uniforms for the rest of their day. I try to wash the car cover every Spring. Heck, I try to wash the CAR every Spring.

I do this routine every time I get in the car, and reverse it every time I get out, carrying a "go bag" with all the bits and pieces I need (refilled bottles of car wash, car iPod, water, whatever) to carry back and forth to my car across the street and down the ramp. There is often a batch of grumpy people giving me the hard eye because they see my preparations as slowing them down on their busy day if they pulled up behind my car. I do it as fast as I can, and have tried to do it on the fly- which doesn't work in NYC traffic. Is it any wonder I live in constant jealousy of those who have the luxury of (insert sound of angels here) their own garage?

Back to the point, unsurprisingly the battery was dead. Dead as doornail. Yes this is the very same brand new battery I had gone to so much trouble to install in December.

Guess what, even the brand new battery with the massive Cold Cranking Amps dies within 3 months without use.
The nice people at the garage had already jumped the battery for me- have I mentioned how nice they are? The attendant refused a tip for jumping the battery. Yes, I said he refused a tip. In New York City. I told you, they are really nice and they really like Emmy, even though she and I are a total pain in the arse (as described above) at the garage.

I know by heart the normal post-jump routine:
Input radio code, Reset windows (didn't need that this time), Reset the dinky onboard clock... But this time the Traffic Pro also "forgot" that it uses Aux input to run my iPod (instead of the CD changer). That code I can't remember. I jumped out at a red light, grabbed the Traffic Pro manual out of my trunk, jumped back in and thumbed the manual at each next stop light on the way to the Holland Tunnel. Nothing about turning the Aux Input on. I tried calling a friend with a Z3 and a Traffic Pro, but then I discovered my hands-free phone car kit was acting up.

The Motorola kit recognized the Bluetooth connection when I had it "search" for it, but I couldn't hear anything from the other person on the line. I paged through all the options on my phone trying to adjust the volume, and I increased the volume on the Traffic Pro for the phone. Nada.

I pulled over again just before I got into the Holland Tunnel to carefully examine both Traffic Pro manuals (Install Guide and Operating Manual) - and discovered that I had no hazard lights. I had turn signals but no hazard lights. They'd click on once, but they would not blink. I know they worked on Thanksgiving, the Three Tow Truck Thanksgiving and so did the phone and the hands-free car kit.

Also I had heard complaints on the receiving end of my phone calls since Thanksgiving when I found the car kit microphone wedged between the dash trim under the steering wheel. In any case, without hazard lights I'm just asking to be rear-ended while stopped on the side of the road by the entrance to the Holland Tunnel, so I got back on the road.

Recapping, in less than a mile from the garage I had:
• No Music (iPod)
• No Hands-Free Phone
• No Hazard Lights

There are only so many manuals one can open at one time on one's lap while driving in Manhattan traffic, by this time I was entering the maze of ramps for the NJ turnpike. If the Car Kit install manual was in the trunk, I wasn't going to see it until Philadelphia. I figured I could read it at the dentist's office after my appointment, which I was sure to be late for- 20 minutes late according to Traffic Pro, which is mysteriously always right about when I will arrive at the dentist regardless of the traffic or construction. Ooooooeoeeeeeeeeoooouuuuu.
At least the car's iPod would be charged for the dentist appointment, my dentist lets me listen to music while they work- my car isn't the only thing that gets gassed up.
Or would it?
Sometimes the contact on the plug doesn't quite meet the charge when I use the 3-way splitter from the cigarette lighter outlet- which also currently supplies power to the cell phone, the AA NiMh battery recharger and the iPod. I reach down into the passenger side parcel net to shove the iPod power plug firmly down into the splitter. The iPod responds with a graphic of a dead battery with an exclamation point and a hazard triangle:

The international symbol for... What? Could it be saying "I am really reaallly REEAAALLLLY dead, not a Monty Python routine?

So I am flying South down the turnpike listening to AM and FM radio- (oh so that's what David Lee Roth sounds like) shoving the iPod plug into the splitter occasionally and sometimes fussing around with the Traffic Pro trying to guess which combination of keys will get me to the Aux In menu so I can turn it on, and sometimes fumbling with the cell phone so I can call the dentist and apologize for coming in late, first disconnecting the phone from from the hands-free car kit so I can be illegally on the phone while driving. La la la. Honest officer, it was working before.
Finally, I yanked the iPod charger plug out of the splitter and shoved it directly into the cigarette lighter.
After a few more apple icon graphics, the iPod began to charge.

Yay.
96 miles later I pulled into the garage in Philadelphia, the iPod ran great at the dentist's and I took a careful read through all my Traffic Pro information. I hadn't been in that folder carefully since 2001, I still had my Traffic Pro beta tester forms including the Navigation Report documents to advise Harman/Becker of errors. As if they were going to reprogram the maps! Ha!
There was NOTHING in the manual or installation guide about how to turn the Aux back on. I tried calling my Z3/TP friend but got a message that his number had changed (it hadn't). Thank goodness I had printed out Ron Stygar's list of short cuts for the Traffic Pro, there was the answer: Hold down the Tone button for 2 seconds to bring up the menu that includes turning on the Aux In and also turns the Phone on. Hmmmmm.
OK, back to the car to gleefully press the Tone button for 2 seconds. I turned the Aux back on -YAY! - but the Phone was already on. I started to go to my cousin's house to use their garage and sort out all these ragged bits and pieces- but...
It all was suddenly working. Doncha just hate that? Nothing works and then it all works and you don't know why but you can't complain because it IS working after all...
The car kit works- although the people on the receiving end hear a very obnoxious echo.
The hazard lights work- although I did NOTHING to right them.
The iPod was plenty charged, at least that made sense.
Oh and the clock on the Traffic Pro is really strange, it does NOT get the time from the satellite, I have to set it. I didn't bother, Daylight Savings is coming up in a month, might as well leave it an hour ahead.
I am hoping this year's Fixit Day to sort out all these mp3, GPS, Satellite Radio, phone car kit and switches so that we can use all this stuff without having to pull the head unit out and change the plugs. In the US there are no BMW oem solutions for our cars because the iPod didn't even come out until after our cars were out of production- and I can hear Burkhardt Goeschel laughing when I think of what BMW's take on car phones in a Z3 would be: HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHA YOU THINK YOU CAN HAVE A CAR PHONE? WE DIDN'T EVEN WANT TO GIVE YOU A ROOF!

I don't know why this stuff stopped working after the car was jumped and I don’t know why it started working again. I have been hearing some other electrical funky stuff from other Traffic Pro users and BMW owners and Z3 people. This is just my experience. As always, Your Mileage May Vary.
I was just happy to have the car out on the road on a nice clear cold but not freezing day- and I should mention I saw Z3s EVERYWHERE. Top up - but out. Our cars may be dirty but we ARE out there driving.

Coming back into the city wasn't easy. Even though I have the AM radio stations tuned in order of traffic reports:

• 1010WINS for traffic on the "ones" (e.g 12:01, 12:11, 12:21, 12:31, 12:41, 12:51, 1:01)
• Bloomberg 1130 for traffic on the "fives" (e.g. 12:05, 12:15, 12:25 etc)
• WCBS 880 for traffic on the "eights"(e.g. 12:08, 12:18, 12:28 etc)

so every 3 or 4 minutes I get an update on the tunnel traffic, so I can pick Holland, Lincoln or George Washington Bridge, heck I could take the Battery Tunnel or the Brooklyn Bridge, or just stop by a friend in New Jersey if all 3 Hudson River crossings are jammed- and sometimes they are. Each station merrily reported no more than 10 minutes wait to enter at the Lincoln Tunnel while the back up at the Holland was at least 30 minutes, I spent 20 minutes on those access roads to the Lincoln (by that time the reports were finally admitting it was a minimum 20 minute wait, its the first time they have totally failed to warn me before I got into tunnel traffic).
Why don't they tell you if the Center Tube is open?

The much-loved Center Tube doesn't allow trucks or buses but sometimes is reversed to carry traffic one direction in both lanes. For me to get to the exit I need for 30th Street from the Right-side tube I have to get in the right lane of the Right-side Tube. If I am in the left lane of the Right-side tube I have to take the 42nd Street exit and drive through Times Square which is fully half of Manhattan away from my beloved downtown, 14th St, not to mention the traffic at Times Square, the "Crossroads of the World". Naturally, if you want to take the Center Tube, you stay to the left- until the last minute when you see that it's not open and you swim like a salmon upstream to get in the Right lane of the Right-side Tube. The buses, heading usually to Port Authority go front-window-to-back-end like a freight train carrying their payload of gamblers from Atlantic City - they won't let me in to the Right lane of the Right-Side Tube, it's theirs. This is why I love the Center Tube. No buses or trucks, and easy to get to my exit. But the Center Tube was going two lanes OUT of the city only. The usual politesse of allowing every-other vehicle in an 8 lanes sieve down to 2 at the bottleneck is suspended as the buses ram themselves in line one after the other, front-window-to-back-window not letting any cars in between. Sometimes you can see them laughing. (pause for one moment to reflect that the Lincoln Tunnel was opened in 1937. 1937!!!!!)

Lincoln Tunnel Center Tube, 1937
I dread that entry moment along with trying to swim through the traffic at the tolls to get over to that right lane in the Right-side Tube. This time I saw my life pass before me several times before the last moment when I was caught in my little roadster between a vice of 2 huge buses, one on either side of me, neither willing to give way as we 3 moved forward into the 2 lanes of the Right Tunnel. I was trying not to move, to allow them both to go first but the way were were wedged in I had to inch along or get hit. Thank you BMW for the LOUD HORN on the Z3. When I saw them both encroaching on respective front fenders I had had enough, I leaned on the horn. Both buses stopped. I scooted out from between them and grabbed the right lane.I didn't have time to check the expression on their faces. It was a fun moment in that I stopped traffic- especially those mean buses- but I was too busy shaking to enjoy it.
Then it was the usual thrill-a-minute ride back to my garage, arm wrestling the insane cabbies down Lexington Avenue.
No coupés were harmed in the production of this story- but I do recognize our coupé brethren have tops despite Burkhardt Goshel's laughter. :)
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