Odd electrical quarks - Battery getting old?

[Ldmf]

Morning,

Recently my Genny has done a couple of odd things. After driving from a golf course to a restaurant at night with the windows down, sunroof open and music loud. Arrived at the restaurant and the windows would not move. Turned the car off and restarted it and they worked.

My XM has started to turn on when starting the car to a channel that I do not listen to and I didn't have the XM on when I turned the car off.

Lastly the auto steering wheel and seat retraction recently doesn't seem to fully restore some days.

Any way, this car has been flawless, it has ~45k on it and it is a 2010. I figure it probably has the original battery in it. Think my battery is going?

Or is it something much more sinister?

Let me know your thoughts.

 

[Audio]

As a technician, I will say ALWAYS start with the simplest and cheapest things as it will save a headache most times. Second, from personal experiences, I will say a dying battery can do VERY weird things to different cars.

I would start by going to a parts store and having them do a battery and load test. Get the little print out and see what it says. It sounds weird, but crazy electrical oddities like that actually COULD be caused by a bad battery, and if the battery isn't the cause, it's at least nice to get tested and know.

 

[kn5owa]

Buy a load tester and test it yourself - easy

HarborFreight sells a nice one with two large meters for about $50 bucks

 

[landtuna]

If your battery is the original, and six years old now, you are already living on borrowed time. No matter what the load test says a six year old battery is ready for the recycle pile.

 

[Ldmf]

I will have the battery checked. Thanks for the responses. Please share any other thoughts you may have.

 

[Audio]

I will have the battery checked. Thanks for the responses. Please share any other thoughts you may have.

Getting it tested at the parts store is free, ordering a new AGM(which I highly recommend), through Advance Auto Parts website gives you the ability to get at least a $30 off coupon, maybe more if you find all the coupons.... but either way, I'd see what the battery test turns up before digging deeper. I'm scared it might sound like a BCM issue if it isn't the battery, because of how many unrelated(but still all interior) electrical issues are cropping up.

 

[Ldmf]

Update:

I had the battery tested twice, two different stores. It tested 84% and 86%, which is good. So hopefully I had just a couple of random things happen. Nothing has happened since, sooooo, weird. I will be watching for anything.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[sdrone]

Over the last year, something similar has happened to me 2 times. When I turn the engine off, the steering wheel does not retract correctly . I have not been able to reproduce it. The 2 times it happened, I turned the car back on and off, and everything worked correctly.

I believe the driver's seat memory system has a flaw, but i can't reproduce that either. Not sure if that's what you're seeing. Occasionally when you hit the preset button, the seat moves backward. like, 4" or more. you think "eh, whatever" and hit the button again thinking it will go to the normal position. But it stays back and you have to set the seat memory again.

The seat memory issue does not affect the steering wheel.

 

[amartz]

The seat memory issue does not affect the steering wheel.

Not altogether sure I agree with that analysis....