Almost Hit By Lightning Today
wz2p7j
Posts: 840
Jeez, I left the park today and was on the freeway ramp when I heard this BANG like a gunshot and saw the ground smoking about 5 feet to the left of my car.
Several warning lights lit up on the dash including the "service tire monitor icon." My right passenger window would no longer go up or down. When I got home the key would not turn all the way off and the car won't start. So I'm assuming there's something wrong with the transmission shift interlock system as well.
All of my tires are intact so I'm assuming I survived a very near lightning strike but not a direct hit. Not really sure how to prove all this to my insurance company given my tires are fine.
In any event, glad to be sitting here drinking this beer typing this - really shook me up.
:D
Chris
Several warning lights lit up on the dash including the "service tire monitor icon." My right passenger window would no longer go up or down. When I got home the key would not turn all the way off and the car won't start. So I'm assuming there's something wrong with the transmission shift interlock system as well.
All of my tires are intact so I'm assuming I survived a very near lightning strike but not a direct hit. Not really sure how to prove all this to my insurance company given my tires are fine.
In any event, glad to be sitting here drinking this beer typing this - really shook me up.
:DChris
Post edited by wz2p7j on
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I've been hit in a car several times, never had a malfunction afterwards, that's weird. Got your heart beating a bit, didn't it?
Check your lips at the door woman. Shake your hips like battleships. Yeah, all the white girls trip when I sing at Sunday service. -
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Jeez, I left the park today and was on the freeway ramp when I heard this BANG like a gunshot and saw the ground smoking about 5 feet to the left of my car.
Several warning lights lit up on the dash including the "service tire monitor icon." My right passenger window would no longer go up or down. When I got home the key would not turn all the way off and the car won't start. So I'm assuming there's something wrong with the transmission shift interlock system as well.
All of my tires are intact so I'm assuming I survived a very near lightning strike but not a direct hit. Not really sure how to prove all this to my insurance company given my tires are fine.
In any event, glad to be sitting here drinking this beer typing this - really shook me up.:D
Chris
Unplug the battery for an hour or two to drain all the juice from the system.
Then "restart" the car. That may reboot the system(s). -
Echosphere wrote: »Unplug the battery for an hour or two to drain all the juice from the system.
Then "restart" the car. That may reboot the system(s).
Good idea - I'll try that. I need to unhook the batter anyway - I can't turn the lights off! Thanks
Chris -
Glad I could help! Let us know if that works. What kind of car and year is it? Normally, most cars now come with around a half dozen or so little computers for different systems.
I'm thinking that your CCM - Comfort or Central control Module is wacked or worse, fried.
It controls doors, sunroof, headlight behaviour, etc.
Also, make sure to check all the fuses. Located, driver side, side dash panel.
Heck, enjoy that beer and toast to your life; let the headlights kill the battery! -
I've been close, but never that close to a lightning strike.My equipment sig felt inadequate and deleted itself.
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Unhooked the battery and back up - now everything works except the front passenger window. Checked all the fuses and breakers and all are OK. So maybe that is the only problem this caused.
Chris -
When I was a kid eating lunch inside the cottage, lightning decide the tree out front should be divorced into two trees. I'll never forget that bang. So loud, so crisp. It would probably scare a blind man more than the seeing.
I wish a had been wearing a diaper that day, I could have used one. -
I wonder how many watts of power it would take to reproduce the audible portion of a lightening strike...
Glad you and the car are ok.The Gear... Carver "Statement" Mono-blocks, Mcintosh C2300 Arcam AVR20, Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player, Sony XBR70x850B 4k, Polk Audio Legend L800 with height modules, L400 Center Channel Polk audio AB800 "in-wall" surrounds. Marantz MM7025 stereo amp. Simaudio Moon 680d DSD
“When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.”— Thomas Jefferson -
Ask Bob Carver.nooshinjohn wrote: »I wonder how many watts of power it would take to reproduce the audible portion of a lightening strike... "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you." Friedrich Nietzsche -
The window motor may be fried.
Lightning produces an intense EM field as well as tons of static electricity from rapid expansion of the air around the strike. Even if your car is insulated or grounded, the static charge can be enough to overwhelm electronics that are static sensitive, like the computers in your car.
I had my truck either get hit or come close to being hit one time. I saw a flash accompanied by a loud bang and the truck died. This was my Ranger by the way. Everything except the lights went off. I turned the key off and tried it again. A couple of clicks and nothing. Then this dude comes running out of his house in a bathrobe asking if I'm ok. I was like "Yeah, truck died, why?" He shouts "You just got hit by lightning!" I said "I did?" then I tried the truck again and it started up. So I told him thanks for checking and to get out of the rain and drove off. I was like 4 blocks from my house too.Expert Moron Extraordinaire
You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you! -
When I was a kid eating lunch inside the cottage, lightning decide the tree out front should be divorced into two trees. I'll never forget that bang. So loud, so crisp. It would probably scare a blind man more than the seeing.
I wish a had been wearing a diaper that day, I could have used one.
Yeah, that's scary stuff when a tree explodes. That happened at summer camp one year. My tent was on the other side of the campsite, about 100 feet from where the tree got hit. It woke everybody up and the tent that was closest looked like Swiss cheese. Some of the chunks of wood stuck in the tent were still smoldering too. The only thing that hit my tent was a bunch of debris peppering the top.
The tree looked like Elmer Fudd's gun when Bugs Bunny sticks his finger in the barrel.Expert Moron Extraordinaire
You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you! -
I'm glad you were able to type that post too.
Lightning has always been super scary to me for some reason.Maybe the way I've lived my life has something to do with my phobia. My wife is 10x more afraid of it than me.
Powerful stuff, lightning is.:eek:Most people just listen to music and watch movies. I EXPERIENCE them. -
Sizzle lean with Jimmy DeanPolitical Correctness'.........defined
"A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a t-u-r-d by the clean end."
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