Been driving the NC once every week or two since the battery incident, seems perfectly fine now. Maybe it took some lasting damage, but not enough to be noticeable at this rate. Will keep monitoring it, but not worried anymore.
Other things that have happened in the meantime:
- Went in for an oil change today. It was quite a bit overdue on time, but a good bit under the usual mileage due to all the sitting around. Decided to do it anyway - it's cheap enough and serves the peace of mind somewhat.
- AC is still broken. Went in for a discounted AC service at Euromaster, was told that a) it seems to not hold pressure, but they're unsure because b) they don't have the necessary equipment for the kind of gas this car uses at that specific location -.- Booked an appointment next week at another location instead that should have the necessary stuff, to diagnose and refill if possible. Not having AC is not a big issue for a convertible in the summer, admittedly, but it makes long drives rather uncomfortable - I prefer to have the roof up when going on the highway for acoustic reasons.
- Got it a new wind break (finally found one off a scrapped car on eBay, 30€ good as new instead of >100€ for a new OEM part), and a new shifter knob, since the old one started literally falling apart. OEM part is again way too stupidly expensive, so I browsed IL Motorsport and found this:
It's one of very few NC-compatible knobs that have the 5-speed pattern on them, and looks and feels good in the car. I noticed it getting a bit warm after long periods of driving, especially on the highway where the transmission does tend to heat up - but it's not uncomfortable or anything.
- Also a new slight issue has cropped up, possibly related to the battery incident. The driver's door lock won't unlock via central locking anymore. It will lock via fob just fine, and does the right noises when unlocking the car via fob, but won't open ~4/5 times, requiring me to use the key. The issue has started when I had the battery run flat - maybe running the solenoid at too low voltage has caused some sort of an issue in there, I don't know. Will probably take the door apart and see what's what some time soon.
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Also, on a sadder note, I finally decided to put it up for sale. Even though it's properly parked now and I don't worry about it sitting out in the street or anything... it's just not being used enough, I don't drive enough to warrant having two cars. It still does this thing to me where I want to sell it more and more and then when I do drive it the desire kind of goes away; but it's the right thing to at this time. Someone else will have more fun actually using it as intended. And I will definitely get another convertible/roadster toy some time down the line, when I have a private garage space to be able to work on one properly.
I've put it up for a decent price, not going to low-ball it as I'm definitely not in a hurry. If someone takes it off my hands at a good price, I'm happy; if it takes a while, well, I get to occasionally drive it for that much longer, which I'm also happy with
If anybody is interested or knows someone who could be interested:
https://suchen.mobile.de/fahrzeuge/details.html?id=299163975