Was rear ended this afternoon...thankfully no major damage. However I had hazards on for about 45 minutes waiting for police to finish report etc. I was ready to leave, and I went to start the car and there was nothing. Police helped to jump the battery and the car started. Could the hazards drain the battery?

 

They use electricity, so... Yeah, they could do it. Not sure that 45 minutes worth should be able to drain a fully-charged battery, though. Worth having the battery tested if you can pull it out and take it to your auto parts store.

 

Really also depends on how old the battery was how hard you were hit. A good jolt could finish an old battery off. If you have a charger charge it up then take it over to auto zone or something and ask them to do a free test with some sort of carbon pile load tester.
To answer your question yes they could but there are alot of variables.

 

Also, believe it or not, hot weather can be more taxing to a battery than cold! It seams counter intuitive but back in the day when I had my shop, we'd change out a ration of batteries on the first hot snap of the year.

 

Make sure the impact didn't crack the batt. and cause it to leak better check!

 

Our MINIs have really wimpy batteries. I've run mine flat just listening to the radio while I was washing and waxing it. So I can imagine that leaving the flashers on for a while would run the battery flat.

Dave

 

Every few days I put mine on a trickle charger. It typically shows a 20-30% discharge. No, no power leakage found.

 

If your battery is four years or older, you should probably be shopping around for a replacement anyway.