Charging my phone completely drained my battery.

Hey people!

My Aveo '09 1.4L is my first car ever since I got my license, so this might be a fairly simple question for y'all.
Basically, I went to a party with my car and spent the night there. At some point, my phone's battery had drained completely, and me having only brought my portable cigarette lighter charger, I stuck my key in the car and plugged in my phone (private parking lot + only friends at party, so no one was going to steal the car).

The next day, my phone was around 80% charged and my car battery was completely drained. And I mean completely. Not even the interior light worked anymore. In my country, there is a cheap service which you can call to jump start your car or tow it for free if you're willing to pay a fixed yearly fee, so I just called them, and they sent someone to help me get my car running again. I told him about my attempt to push-start it with the help of five other people, but he just said that there's no chance of that working if the battery's so empty that the radio refuses to turn on. Obviously, I haven't charged my phone in my car since unless I was driving it.

Now, my phone battery holds 3 Ah. Doing some looking-up using Google, I've found that most car batteries have ten-fold that. I know no charger is 100% efficient, but can it really be that it's only 10% efficient? Or is there something wrong with my car? Battery is 6 years old and hasn't been replaced.

Thanks in advance!

You're probably due for a battery after 6 years. And for the cost of them, it's pretty good insurance against getting stranded somewhere this winter. I think Austria has some extreme temperatures (hot and cold) throughout the year like Canada, it'll take it's toll on batteries.

Yup, we range anywhere from 5°F to around 104 depending on the season. Thanks for responding. It might really be time to get a new battery, I've called the service three times now to jump start my car. Maybe I should just invest in some jumper cables, haha.

3 recent jump starts is the sign the battery is done for. It was weak before the phone incident, but draining it completely was a fatal blow.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by haiyyu

I told him about my attempt to push-start it with the help of five other people, but he just said that there's no chance of that working if the battery's so empty

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Yeah, I learned that the hard way with a 1st gen Golf/Rabbit. I worked so hard to push it up a little hill, and then when it didn't bump start I was bummed. Ended up flagging down a taxi for a jump start. Of course I now understand you need enough battery power to run the ignition & fuel pump.

Welcome to the forum!