Deseret, Cactus, & Texas: Land of the Free and the Hope it will stay that way

In a continuation of the battery story from last post, I went to get in my truck to go to work Monday morning and the found that the doors would not unlock using the remote. I opened the door with the key and found that nothing electrical in the car would work. I opened the hood and measured the voltage across the terminals of the new, 2-day-old battery. It measured less than 2 volts. My first reaction was that Jiffy Lube had lousy batteries. My second reaction was, "How am I going to get to work?"

Felicia had already left to play tennis so I couldn't jump my truck and even if I did, the battery was so dead it may not even run. I had to turn to my motorcycle to get me to work.

At work, I started thinking that the chance of two batteries dying prematurely like that means that something is wrong with the truck. There is a parasitic current draw when the truck is turned off. A co-worker did a quick google search and discovered the likely culprit was the AC clutch relay being stuck on. Here is a picture of it's location.

Monday night, I removed the relay and charged the battery with a $40 charger from O'Reilly Auto Parts.

I put the relay back in Tuesday and took the truck in to the Honda dealer. The service adviser said they found nothing wrong with the electrical, but had a big list of other stuff needing repair. I asked him what on that list he would have corrected if it were his truck. He said that the only thing he would do now is replace the brake pads and the cracked rubber motor mount (few rubber motor mounts last 10 years in AZ heat).

I then asked if my electrical problem could be an intermittent AC clutch relay problem. He said he didn't think that was it because the truck was turned off so the AC would be off and there would be no drain on the battery (not what people were saying on the Ridgeline owners forum). I thought I would not argue and would just buy a new relay at the parts department and replace it myself. He called back a few minutes later and said he had talked to a few technicians and decided that they would replace the relay ($15 part) just to be safe. All has been working fine since then and Jiffy Lube called me up to tell me they would be refunding me the price of my new battery based on the warranty.

On July 4th Felicia wanted me to put up the flag. Well I soon learned that the roof repair from last yeare resulted in tile overhang that prevented insertion of the flag pole into the bracket. I removed the bracket to move it and found the trim under the bracket needed painting. I though I found the right paint in the garage but when I applied it, it was clearly darker. It was the paint from our living room. Since I had it out, I touched up the living room and went back in the garage where I found the right paint. When the paint dryed, I mounted the flag bracket.