Last night I was stuck in bad traffic with an 85 190e 2.3. I had been basically stopped in this traffic for about an hour. had the radio on my headlights on the defroster going full blast (I noticed that if I run the defrost at the highest temp it helps keep the engine cool in bad traffic). I had opened the window to let some of the hot air escape and I think that's all I had running. Car has a new battery and a fairly new alternator I believe. Anyway, the car starts to act a little quirky, the tachometer needle started to jump from where it was idling up to 2k and then down to .5k and back and forth, I turned off things and the car is not actually revving, just the needle has acted up. So I think, "better pull over somewhere and let the car settle and the trafic clear". So I found a spot and put up the window (Which went up very slowly). Walked away came back half hour later car wouldn't start. Got AAA involved guy came and jump started the car. He didn't have to have the cables on the batteries for more than fifteen seconds before I was able to turn on the headlights and start the car, drove it home (traffic had cleared out at this point) no problems car started right up this morning. What might cause this? The car didn't make any funny noises just seemed to lose juice. does sitting in traffic in an old car do this? how could I avoid it in the future. I usually don't get this car up past 40mph, in fact I don't think the car has ever gone faster than 60 (second owner though who knows what happened before). Any thoughts on why this might have happened, what to check, and whether I can expect it to happen again (although I am determined never to get stuck in traffic like that again, go get a coffee instead). Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks, happy holidays, cdt