When I was about to leave the go club yesterday evening my wife called and told me that her car won't start. When I came home I noticed that the car seemed to have no power whatsoever. I called a car battery guy and I'm glad I did because he did some tests and diagnostics on the battery and the car to rule out the possibility of other parts, including the alternator, being broken. It turned out that the battery was completely empty. The car hadn't been driven for nine days and on the day my wife had driven it, it had been a little difficult to start it, which she told me only yesterday. In most cases, they recommend that a car battery that is completely dead and not new be changed but the battery guy told me the battery on the car was a high-quality one and would most likely remain usable. He did recommend having the battery tested when I take the car to the shop for its annual maintenance in a week or two. Another thing he recommended was buying a battery charger that prevents the charge from going too low when a car is not used for a considerably long time. We had a useful conversation about which type of chargers to use for each battery type. We checked the type of the battery of our newer car, too, because the kind of charger he recommended for my wife's car could've harmed the battery on the newer car as it was likely to have a different type of battery (AGM) because of the fuel-saving automatic start-and-stop function on it. It didn't in which case I can buy the cheaper type costing about €80 or so.
My wife told me she had forgotten to lock the doors. I also noticed once the car had been running for five minutes and and the battery guy had left that one of the passenger compartment lights was on. I have taken a mental note to make sure to check her car too from now on.
The battery guy also advised me to drive the car 40 to 60 minutes to charge the battery properly, which I did. I drove the motorway down to Mäntsälä and back. Close to Lahti, I noticed an abandoned restaurant by the road. The road I used on the return trip was the old national road number four which had been downgraded after the motorway from Järvenpää to Lahti was built in 1999. The restaurant business had been devastated by the traffic lessening radically after that.