If anyone else does, please instruct your spouse and child, in my case my wife and eight year old Katy, to unplug it/turn it off when the ride is done.

I just spent the last hour digging out the battery charger ( It was buried under an avalanche in the garage ) and jumping old Iron Man in the 10 degree morning. Needed a flashlight too. The red positive jump point cap was a bear to take off with brittle fingers and no clear instructions in the owner's manual. I looked at it and perceived the hinge and pried it off with a flat head.

The car also would not let go of the keys in the ignition until power was applied. I guess that is the result of all our new electronically coupled technologies.
I was thinking of just firing up the '64 Corvair and driving it today, but it is not a great convertible day. I know it will start right up too....

THe HHR is charging now, a trickle charge for a bit at 2 amps. will bring it up to 10 , 40 or 200 as needed. Figure may as well trickle it in rather than run the car for a while. It is charging as I thaw my hands typing this.
The affair made Sally take the day off, so I guess we'll finally get the Christmas decorations down.............
Anyway, Good morning to all, from Connecticut!

 

That's really surprising. I would have figured the battery rundown protection system would have cut power to that outlet before the voltage dropped too much.

I just checked the owner's manual, the power outlets are NOT protected by the BRP system.

 

Yeah, the power outlets can drain the battery dead.
BRP works fine on lights etc though.

Funny, in the Honda, the power outlets are switched and I need to make one unswitched for charging a cell phone. But that car has no BRP so if someone leaves a light on, there goes the battery.

 

I used to run the battery down in the old Corsica all the time by leaving the dome light on. The worst was when I was at KCI airport in Kansas City in Long Term parking coming back from Thanksgiving Break in college. I had to pay a tow truck driver from the gas station on the corner $25 to come jump my car!

 

A two hour 2 amp trickle charge worked fine and Iron Man roared to life. The radio presets seemed fine too
A day later and no problems. Little Katy is all up to speed now on the plugging and unplugging of her new seat heater. Mom is too. They are off to Boston for a family day today. Me, gotta go to work.....
Later .......

 

After close to two years, I'm still amazed at how little it takes to run down the battery. I hope the newer HHR's have a better battery.

 

Harpo.....

Do you know what wattage, amperage the rear seat heater draws???

 

Any better replacement batteries out there? I have read other threads, but not come across one. I would upgrade for piece of mind if a clearly WAY better product was available.

OEM is not often the bests stuff as we know from tires etc. Batteries are likely speced to a low minimum to save money. I prefer to have reserve capacity which the HHR batteries seem to be lacking from the threads I read.

In our instance though, I can see a heating element running any battery down fast during a fourteen hour drain at 10 degrees F or less.
Our fault this time. Still, a better battery may have survived.............

 

No, I'm trying to find the paperwork on it, but I think during the Christmas morning cleanup......, uh, it went missing
I can go look at one at the shop I bought it from or go online too. Just gotta wait for the family to get back from Boston tomorrow.

Katy loves it though. Now she doesn't feel cheated when mommy and daddy are fiddling with their spoiled parents seat heater toys in the front.
Yes, we spoil her, but hopefully in a good way

Her mother and I looked at her today as she readied for her trip . She had the seat heater in place, a warm winter jacket on, all buckled in, hat, gloves, sleeping bag next to her ( For sleeping over her aunt's house), a blanket on top of her, and then she took her mother's jacket and put it over all that when Sally took off her coat for the long drive.
I give her ten miles before she jettisons all that top matter. Or we'll have a roasted child!

 

I forgot the exact specs, but you can check at the AC/Delco site. They list the replacement battery. The best battery I found is the yellow top Optima, but they dont have an exact replacement. The positive cable is on the wrong side, but the terminals look to be more centered so it may work. I have to look into it myself, as I have been having similar problems. My battery went dead while I was waiting to have my car inspected. I had the door open and was working on the car for about 45 minutes. I turned off the back dome light, but there is no way to shut down the 2 map lights under the rear view mirrors so they must have drained the battery. There certainly is no reserve. I just went to Strauss auto store and bought a battery booster on sale for 30 bucks. I got the kind that has clips to connect right to the battery, not the cigarette lighter one. I am afraid of boosting it from there. Dont want to blow any fuses or overtax the thin wiring the car uses. I have been keeping the center rear panal off in the back so I have easy access to the battery.