Rav4 Possessed

Vince & I have 2 working cars out of 4 at the moment. We have a Cutlas, Trans Am, Celica, and Rav4. His old Cutlas needs a new battery....well, actually, we took his good battery out of the Cutlas & put it in the Celica when the Celica's battery died. The Celica has air conditioning & gets great gas mileage so Vince has been driving it daily as he is repairing his Trans Am. The Cutlas gets terrible gas mileage and has no air conditioning, but runs great when it has a battery in it. The Trans Am is almost done with it's overhaul, but is currently still up on jack stands.

The Rav4 is the newest car & yet decided today to die. Not only did it die, it completely freaked me out. This is the car that is supposed to work & work well. I went to Party City to get cake supplies & when I got back in my car to start it....nothing. In fact when I unlocked my doors with the key, it didn't beep or flash the lights. It was totally dead with no warning. It hasn't been sluggish or taking longer to start or anything. It went from 100% to 0%. I called Vince to come save me. Luckily, he had just finished mowing the grass & was near his phone. He brought the Celica & jumper cables & jumped off the Rav4's battery.

As I was driving home, I made a left hand turn to find out that my power steering was totally gone. The car did NOT want to turn left. I had to forcibly turn the steering wheel so I didn't ram into the car in the right lane. As I was still driving, all the dashboard lights and signals started flashing off & on randomly as the steering was still out. I pulled into Advanced Auto & Vince followed me. I made him drive the Rav4 the rest of the way home while I drove the Celica.

At first I thought it was the battery, but when it wouldn't keep the charge while driving, I thought maybe it was the alternator or the electrical system. This isn't exactly what we wanted to work on during our Saturday. But after finding a post on the Rav4 forum website, we learned that it was just the battery. Several other 2007 Rav4s have had this same problem. For whatever reason, the factory battery dies with no warning while the power steering goes out and the lights flash like the car is possessed.

Vince bought me a new battery & the Rav4 is now up & running. I'm so lucky to have a wonderful husband that can work on cars & save me when I'm stranded.