Pretty embarrassing title for a thread if you’re a grown man over 40. Here’s the situation.
7 years ago I owned several thinks and my parents owned one, a 2 passenger golf model with the Rev2 motor and charger upgrades. It drove terrible so I took it over to the dank but seemingly competent alignment shop and asked for a front end alignment. They did the work and I drove it home to my parents who happened to have a vacation home in the same community as I lived.
The car has never charged since that date. My dad prides himself on being a guru of all things motorized and claims that the alignment shop “clowns” I used somehow arched the electrical system by jacking the car up or putting a metal plate under the car while doing their work. The result is that it destroyed the wiring of the Think car. The batteries at that time were about 5 years old. He claims the DC amp meter says they had juice. He claims the main wiring to the batteries fried or some other unsubstantiated claim.
My theory is that either A the batteries either lacked sufficient voltage to initiate a charge cycle or B that dad is partially right that an electrical event happened and that the cluster was compromised. I bought a spare cluster knowing they are fragile and thinking that it would be good to have even if not the current problem.
Fast forward from 2007 to the year 2016. I sold my other thinks. My parents gave me the broken think that I “ruined”. It sits in my storage unit rotting away.
The question: is it possible my dad is right? I don’t want to buy $1200 in batteries if it turns out that much more is wrong with the vehicle than that. Would appreciate a weigh-in on this issue. I do have an AMP probe and have some basic technical acumen if there are diagnostics to be run, however I’m not sure what I can accomplish with dead batteries. You see the paradox? Don’t want to spend money to fix the car if it turns out dad is right and the vehicle has big problems. Can’t verify that easily with a dead think.
I would love nothing more than to disprove my dad on this topic. His confidence in his diagnosis without good evidence really annoys me but his track record on troubleshooting cars using paranormal powers is frighteningly good.
Follow up question: What is the best quality, best value battery type for Ford THinks these days and where do I buy?