PTK, his GF, and I drove in my 1999 Toyota Avalon to the boomershoot Saturday. I nailed a rock on the highway, due to my own idiocy being too close behind a truck that cleared it not leaving enough time to react.. I'm already pissed enough at myself so lets just move past that shall we?
We looked underneath and didn't see any damage or leaks so we drove on, car did just fine another 45 or so miles. At the shoot we checked it again and the car was whining and we watched.. both of us.. the belt with the alternator, water pump, and AC stop and all the flywheels stopped as well. This happened a couple of times. I shut the car off. A few minutes later I wanted to see it again and the car would not start, dead battery.
Our theory was that the rock nailed the water pump which was intermittently seizing stopping the AC and the Alternator resulting in a low charge in the battery when we got there. Thinking that further running of the engine would be bad, I had it towed all 175 miles back to Missoula for bucko $$$
Flash forward to tonight, knowing that the battery was old (though it tested out just fine in all respects 6 months ago) I replaced it since it had to be about time and draining it that far is bad for them. I started the car off of this new battery and, praise Cthulu in all his dark glory, it was healed! It runs perfectly, I watched it run for 20 minutes without a hiccup, shut it off... started it again.. same thing. The idiot light did not come on after the rock it or now, it does not have a voltage gauge.
So... what the crap is the deal with my car