Update time!
In December I drove my trusty steed on it's longest journey it's ever had while it's been in my possession - a 14 hour, 973 mile drive to Florida and for a week to see my family then the same drive back home over the holidays. Enjoy this godawful picture of me next to a giant dolphin at a rest stop:
(I'm working on this, rest assured, it's tough but anyway back to the trip and the car....)
Things went well, each way. - the most drama I experienced was difficulty with the CarPlay screen staying on it's mount after I detached it for parking - turns out you have to push surprisingly hard to "click" the mounting adapter in place on the back of the display. The AC worked well although the temps were pretty mild, and the car held highway speeds without much fuss. The CarPlay screen itself performed near flawlessly, save for some very occasional interference due to it being wireless, and the limitations of my slow 6S Plus phone getting hot. I since retired it for a iPhone 12 which is like a night and day difference.
Ended up visiting a cute town with the fam called Mt. Dora which goes all out each year for the holidays:
And also took advantage of the trail system at a park where my Dad and Stepmom play pickleball:
A couple weeks after the return trip, I noticed the first issue in a while - the car didn't fully turn over when i started it and I had to let it crank a bit to star. Then when i would hit the stop sign at the end of my street the engine would threaten to stall and the idle would get super lumpy and rough, you could feel it pulsing.... I had to goose the gas pedal to keep it alive - that was a instant nope from me and I nursed it back into the parking spot. Went back out later in the day to check various things - hoses and lines, electrical connections, spark plug wiring/boots, air filter, etc. One of the connectors on a spark plug was seated but didn't click so I pushed the connector in further - still no click but it seemed fine.
Went ahead and started the car and it was fine, turned over right away, the car held a steady idle while in gear. Things were good again....or so I thought.
2 days later the same thing happened, car took longer to turn over, had a rough idle, engine threatened to stall unless I gave it gas, etc. I also noticed the transmission would behave very poorly when I took the car to the store (this was a trip that had to happen unfortunately), it hung out in 2nd gear for a while before shifting into third gear and beyond, making my progress up a steep hill that I have to turn onto pretty much immediately after leaving my house a bit stress inducing. I parked, got out of the car and went into the store.
15 min later I got back in, turned on the car, and it was fine! I drove it back home, engine smooth, transmission fine. It was truly bizarre behavior and meant that the issues only happened during the initial drive of the day.
I had an appointment scheduled for the state inspection so I figured I'd get it looked at there. The car passed inspection but upon testing the battery found that while it had a design capacity of 600 CCAs, it was only at 388 CCAs. So they threw it on the charger to boost it a bit to like 491 CCAs but warned that a new battery was definitely in my future.
And it was, a day or two later it got bitter cold again...same symptoms....so I milked it to a Advance Auto up the road (never thought I'd darken their doorstep again since the XJ but here we are, at least I wasn't walking in 90+ degree heat in the summer lol) and did the battery swap in their parking lot. Just like that, the car was fine and worked consistently well.
Until a few days ago. I had just gotten back from driving to NJ (about a 3 hour drive each way) to hang out with
@LP at the NYIAS on Saturday. On Sunday I tried to start the car for the first time that day, in temperate temps mind you, probably 65 degrees F from a high of 75 degrees F in the afternoon by the time I drove the car that evening. The same symptoms popped back up, slow turnover, engine threatening to stall, transmission shift hangs, etc. and like before, 15 min later for the return drive home...car was fine.
What changed from before this started happening and now? Well as a test, I decided to unplug the carplay display and my phone charger from the 12 volt outlets when the car is off and so far the car's been starting reliably and driving fine. I then introduced the phone charger into the mix again mid week and so far so good still. So unless it happens again, I bet the carplay display is somehow having just enough parasitic draw to slowly drain the battery overtime and my intermittent drives can't keep up. In theory, no power draw should occur - power is cut to the outlets when the car is switched off and I can see the light on the charger and the screen go out usually a few seconds after I turn off the car and open the driver's door - I have auto off (but not on) headlights that switch off when i open the driver's door so I leave them on all the time.
It's weird coincidence that this has happened a day (in the case of the latest case) to a week (after my trip to florida and back) after extended drives though.
I may give it another week of doing this before running to AutoZone or Advance to get a battery test done, just to see where I stand.
Anyway, here's a pic of the car after one of it's more recent car washes last month:
I have to park in a spot that I hate because my roommate can't drive stick and rolled his Jetta nearly into the creek, so he parks into this divot in our driveway out of paranoia and I was sick of him nearly hitting my car when he'd back out of said divot due to his rear end overlapping my car.
So now i park on the opposite part of the driveway where birds just shit on my car with reckless abandon - I wash the car now at least once a week because it's just inundated with shit. Cannot wait to move in June.
EDIT: Oh yeah - I got a letter from Kia today... It confirms they won't do the big anti-theft software update on the 1st gen Forte despite it and the 2013 Elantra being close to the same car and that car's getting a software update from Hyundai. So instead, they're going to ship me a gobsmackingly ugly yellow and silver fucking Club like it's 1985 or some shit. As someone who pre covid parked in sketch places to go to shows a lot and is starting to dip my toe in returning to my favorite haunts, it's a bit of a bummer. Hope she won't get stolen - the market's not favorable to buy a new car now with interest rates as they are!
That was a good run! You put almost 100k on it, right?
Interesting! I ended up trading it in so who knows if it'll end up on the road with another buyer to figure out! lol.