Graham Butcher

Dash cams are normally connected in one of 2 ways, the first is via a power lead that is plugged into either a USB socket or 12V power socket, some call them cigarette lighter socket. The other is directly wired to the cars supply via a circuit that is only active when the ignition is switched on. The power lead method is not a given that when the ignition is off, the supply to the socket is off. In lots of cars the USB or 12v socket is always live so if that the case with your car, and you don't pull the plug out of the socket, then that is still connected and drawing power, and will drain your battery down enough to prevent the car starting, especially if the car does move for a few days. It might well only drawing a few milliamps, but they all add up of time. Normally there is an indicator on the dashcam to show that it is active, a LED should be glowing when powered up. So the question is do you always unplug the dashcam and judging by what you have already said that is NO, so I suggest that you do so with immediate effect and see how the car behaves after a few days driving. EDIT: I just looked back your other posts, and you mentioned that the camera was an Azdome one and so I have looked on their website and for a dashcam to be left on 24/7 which is what they call 24 Hour Parking Monitor it will require an external power supply and copy here an extract from their web page. 24-Hour Parking Monitor 24-Hours Parking Monitor only works on an external power source. If someone hits your car and impact reaches the G-Sensor Level, then the camera will turn on and record it. Note: 24-Hours Parking Monitor requires AZDOME 3-lead Micro USB Hardwire Kit(not included in the packaging). Hardwire kit need buy extra, search ASIN: B0BGHQN5RP

The reason for saying what I said was that if the car has been jump started using the incorrect method that the resultant current flow risks damaging the current sensor/battery monitor attached to the battery negative terminal cable clamp. This could then result in the battery charging management system not having the correct info being received from the monitor and can do one of the two things I originally mentioned. So it could overcharge and damage the battery plates internally, or it may be undercharging. jump start.pdf

Lol, correct it should be NO

Since the battery was fitted and the coding done, has the car been jump started? If yes, was it done correctly using the ground point instead of the negative battery terminal? If yes then that may the cause of your problems as the current sensor has been bypassed and confused the charging regulator meaning the battery could have been overcharged and suffered internal damage. Or it might be under charging and may just need charging and recoded again. Get the battery tested again by a garage and see how it fares.

@Lee Correct, although the Superb is not a particularly wide car by today's standards, it however far longer than lots of cars and bays. It is very noticeable when backing out of a bay that the back is extremely close to the next row of cars, making the manoeuvre at best a 2 stage and sometimes 3 if the car opposite is long or badly parked.

Never ceases to amaze me just many drivers appear to think that their car is both wider and longer than others are. It makes me so mad to see with people small cars like Fiestas etc, swing out to the crown of the road to make a left turn🙄

Yeah, the Taycan is a big fat thing for sure, but I thought Tesla's were to bad.

@tootNo, its been many years since I was last up in Scotland, lovely scenery you have there. The furthest north I ever got was Aberdeen.

No, I did get an apology in the end, they claimed it was a change of shifts that caused the delay. I wasn't aware that I could have claimed, but then, maybe I couldn't because it is a perk offered by my bank, therefore I don't actually subscribe to the RAC.

Well, he might well have a point if he had to go to the west of Scotland, there is not that much support for EVs. Take a peek at the attached, which shows some of the charge points in The Hague.

I don't have a clue how the recovery Centres & Body Repair centres will get on with it. I expect that they will have to follow the guidelines because can you imagine the carnage and the massive claims being made if a fire was to break out in a crowded yard. My car was taken to Balgores in Witham and like I said there must have been around 100 vehicles stored there and mine was in the middle of the front row and was one of just a handful that was drivable. If an incident did happen, they would never be able to extract many vehicles before they were all engulfed. As to the RAC, well they are at best laughable in my view, on 2 occasions they had to recovery me and I wait over 7 hours once and 4 hours on the other.

Further to my original post in response to @Warrior193post where I posted a link to the telegraph about damaged EV cars having to be quarantined at least 15m away from anything else, and I also post the UK Gov document (MOT) confirming this I have got further confirmation of this from research carried by Thatcham who are the advisory body for the UK industry and the insurance companies and their report is also attached, and it not only discusses this but also shows what this graphically means, and it means that in the same space needed to store 100 ICE cars awaiting accident repairs, they can only store just 2 EVs. If the area does not have any other structures or vehicles bordering onto it then the maxim they can store is just 8. When I visited the repairs where my old damaged car was being stored awaiting instructions, their yard was rammed with cars and just about enough space to open a door and squeeze in the car. This rule is going to be very problematical for them and will shove costs up across the board. This shown on pages 38 & 39 of the document if printed out, but if reading it online it is pages 44 & 45 as they do not number the index pages. So it would seem that the Telegraph, at least on this occasion, was just pro ICE and anti EV but were in fact factual after all. recovery-_operators-working-with-electric-vehicles (2).pdf Impact-of-BEV-Adoption-on-the-Repair-and-Insurance-Sectors-report-Innovate-UK-and-Thatcham-Research-FINAL.pdf

Never a good idea to leave your dashcam connected, it will drain the battery.

Have you checked to see if the battery terminals are clean and also tight? Also check the ground connection on the chassis. Did you observe where the guy connected his jump set leads, was it directly to the battery terminals or did he connect the ground to the ground point and the positive to the battery? If the latter, it might indicate battery connection of the ground could be suspect. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of the battery being faulty, how long is the warranty on it? I had one with a 4-year warranty fail at the 3-year mark, but such events are very rare.

If you can't manage to finish it off, I'll help you out with it as long as its toffee flavoured or sweet. 😂

Lots of things are well understood in various industries, but that does not equate to being in the best interests of the consumer or the environment. I have some equipment that is years old and has been designed well to last, and then I have items to repair in the past for insistence that were only a few years old fail and parts were none standard and not available even from the manufacturers, they were not even interested in supplying any schematics. On the other hand I have some equipment that is getting on in life made by TTi of Huntingdon, and they have been extremely interested and helpful in the supply of technical info, schematics and parts, often FOC. If ever I was in the position of equipping a new electronics lab for someone, I'd have no hesitation in purchasing / specifying their fantastic range of equipment because they stand by their products. And for the record, I was not trying to make it personal at all, I was trying to get my head around the way you always manage to avoid the issues and try to have the last word on every topic, I don't think it's too personal to ask a person for their age, if they don't to divulge their actual age they could always give an indication of their age group, I never made it a secret of my age, but hey ho whatever. What do you say to we call a truce on this because we both feel that we are right and @xman has already indicated that he is bored with it anyway?

Hmm, OK then so why is that I seem to have a pretty constant list of things that need repairing in the electronics sphere I wonder, I'll have to ponder that won't I? Could it be that I'm older and have more experience of things and that I've discovered that things are seldom, what the marketing teams are trying to convince you, that they are? I have asked you before to divulge your age, but you side step that, but I can't help but get that feeling about you that you are fairly young in years. Just like many teenagers think that they know everything and us old fogies know nothing. I used to poke fun at my late Father, especially over his politics, but now, I'm beginning to see his view point and I have to admit that with age comes wisdom and the things that told me to watch for, are indeed beginning to emerge. My sons also went that know it all stage, but I can see how that brashness is slowly slipping away as time goes by... Edit. The other thing about modern electronics is that are assembled by robots and even the dearest bits of electronic test equipment etc actually has built-in obsolescence with parts designed to last x years and production stops and yet the equipment would still be perfect for the job, but they have just designed another that makes the older one obsolete.

Well, no, you have misread the situation again. What I was saying, and I also know a thing or 2 about electronics which you may or may not have picked up by now, was that in the olden days the only electronic part in cars was the condenser wired across the points of the distributor as a spark quencher and that the average person with any mechanical knowledge could sort out most breakdowns and get the car going again. That no longer is the case and anyone of those SMD parts or indeed TH parts can quickly ruin your day if they decide to pop their clogs. Some things are self-evident when they fail and others not so, and also today there are not many people who could repair such circuitry as schematics and spares are not available. You should know that the method these days is not to spend time trying to track down what went wrong and failed, but to replace complete units. When was the last time anybody saw a television repair shop, once upon a time there used to be 2 or 3 in most towns, not any more, we are now a throw away society and replace and that is not cheap nor good for the environment which I find it odd that you don't appear to appreciate that aspect and yet you champion the EV as being good for the environment. It has to better to keep things going for as long as possible, rather than expending a massive amount of energy making new things all the time and disposing of the old when it could be fixed up. It is the TH larger electrolytic capacitors that do often fail, but that can also be quickly and easily replaced and also normally easy to spot as they normally either disgorge their inwards and electrolyte all over the circuit board, or they bulge and vent. Occasionally they might dry out and cease to do any function, but is again easy to spot using the right test equipment which I have.

@lol-lol No problem, I understand about the scheme, but when I retired (already well over retirement age) the small private pension plans from previous employments would have only brought in a few hundreds of £ a year between them and even less if I took a lump sum. I had a few £ saved away that I inherited from my late Mother's estate, which was sadly not what it could have been, but the various recessions had done to her cost of living had entered into a equity release scheme based on her house, for which she received a pittance of a monthly contribution to state pension, so the equity company made a small fortune when I had to hand over the keys to the house. I took advice on what was the best way to handle my pension and was advised to leave it where it is for the time being and manage on the inheritance as the rate of interest on my savings was far lower than the pension pot could hopefully produce based on its performance at the time. Then as the "B" word began to be implemented bit by bit, the shares where the pot was invested took many hits and has seen over 40% of its original value wiped off it. I'm tracking it, and it starts to slowly edge its way up again and then Westminster has a reshuffle, or a new PM etc and it crashes again. I also know from my Mother's experience that they take into account any savings you have and from that it pretty certain that I won't get any help from them as they have also been squeezed by Westminster as they would deem I'm a needy case because I still have a bit of savings. Like you, I also find public transport a pain in the butt to use, even though I have a free bus pass it carries restrictions on the times I can travel free and there never seems to a bus running where I need to go and carrying bags of shopping on the bus is a joke these days. I did my apprenticeship with my local bus company and they were good days, these days public transport is a shell of its self and is no longer fit to be called public transport. As for road tax or VED, I thought I did good when I got my 2nd hand replacement car after my other one was written off for me by some idiot, the tax on my car is only £35 a year, but sadly my insurance renewal following the accident, even though it was a no fault on my part and the other party's insurer has paid out in full, my new quote for this year has increased by 108% which making me think seriously about selling the car and give up on driving.

Be great to get that amount of free charging all the time

@toot Totally agree with you, some of the EV drivers are so ignorant that they cannot see there may be others who really need to use the faster chargers as they be in a rush to continue their journeys, the same as these service stations that also have mini supermarkets in them and someone, fills and then goes and do their shopping rather than parking elsewhere and freeing up the pump for others 🤬 With red/orange thingy, I never realised that the display was animated and that your photo happened to catch it mid-movement 👍

I have to say it, but there does seem to be much hype about the lack of servicing required, but that is not what I'm seeing here at all, the big difference is the lack of engine oil and oil filter changes, everything else is much the same. True brake wear is reduced but the amount of wear on any car reflects the manner of driving, and I don't rely on my brakes, I was taught to drive by bus drivers and so use the engine and being a diesel they have a higher compression ratio and provide pretty good braking, and coming to a halt with the minimum of effect to passengers as it is possible. Fuel filters only need checking/replacing at best 60,000 miles, something like 6 to 8 years driving for a lot of people. All of these self-service videos also make use of something that so very few people have access to, a inspection pit or a hoist. the underbody trays on modern cars almost make one of those a must or at least 2 people laying on their backs beneath the cars, not normally possible for many people, me included. What was that $20 dollars for washer fluid?? I get concentrated fluid and mix it with water as required, this costs around £1 and lasts over 3 years and washer fluid needs topping very regularly not just at servicing time. Brake fluid, absorbs moisture regardless of if the brakes see much use and so need to be replaced regularly, and is not that expensive to do. The cost indicated of $720 for 5 years servicing is not that much different to an ICE car with variable servicing, which will vary according to how hard and the driver's style of driving and from personal experience and I have seen plenty of Tesla drivers and also Porsche Taycans etc., who drive like they own the road and simply must be at the head of the queue and are often the ones doing dodgy overtaking where others would hesitate, and then I normally get to pull gently to a smooth controlled stop behind them at the next road junction or traffic lights etc, and then they go off again like the hare only to and more than likely caught up with at the next hold-up.😏

Well, I have to say that the display does not make it abundantly obvious to anyone without having read up somewhere how to understand the information being displayed. Traditionally, on say a mobile phone, green in the battery symbol would mean that the battery is full and orange or red would mean that the battery requires charging. Think you explaining it, it might come in handy if I get an EV.

Please enlighten me here, I'm having a bit of difficulty understanding these 2 photos. The top one seems to me to say that the time is 07:40:41 and the green battery showing that the car is fully charged. The bottom indicates the 08:25:46, 45 minutes after the first photo was taken and yet it shows the battery is charging and reached approx 33% of charge? Or are the photos taken on 2 different days, or have I got that all wrong??

I fully appreciate that, what I was saying is that there are more of those in EV's and got knows there are simply loads in most modern cars anyway. In my Superb diesel there are no fewer than 19 ECUs with their own CPU's etc and when you look back to the days when there were none of these gadgets in cars and most knowledgable people could bodge something together to get going again, that is not normally the position these days so unless the car goes into "limp home" mode, you get to sit at the roadside for hours on end waiting for support to arrive. It happened to me twice in my previous car and the RAC took ages to reach me.