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On 10 Dec 2003 at 19:31, Keith Park wrote: > >If its dead, and it drops below freezing, your battery will freeze and that > will be the end of it so get it inside or on charge. The first winter I had my 68 I had a trunk light that stayed on without my knowledge. It took nearly a year to me and the dealer to figure out what the problem was. (It was a trunk light with mercury switch that had gotten bumped so that it would SOMETIMES stay on when the trunk lid was closed. With winters that fell to -20 many nights I often came out to my car (which just got driven once a week or so) only to find it completely dead. I parked in a gas station parking lot, so they could just roll out their charger and get me going again, but my battery was frozen solid so many times that I lost count. You could see the sides bulging. Opening up the cell caps you could see ice filling every cell. That was the OE battery, and it still lasted into the winter of 73-4, when it developed a shorted cell. I remember, because by that time it was weak and I had added a second Sears battery in parallel with it. When the OE battery shorted down to 10V it completely discharged the Sears battery so that even with 2 batteries I was completely dead. The Sears battery recovered, but the OE battery was toast. So my point is that freezing is not good for your battery, but sometimes they can still surprise you and survive it. -- ******************************* Jim Adney, jadney@vwtype3.org Madison, Wisconsin, USA ******************************* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list | mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org