You may be wondering, “What changing a battery in my vehicle has to do with independence?” As a nation of consumers we have forgotten how to perform even the simplest of tasks. Especially with our overly complex vehicles. Gone are the days of the backyard mechanic. A laptop computer and a Car Bus Interface is often needed to determine why that pesky Check Engine light is glowing on your dash. Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way stating that mechanics are not needed. Every time I have an issue with a vehicle, I must make a decision, is this something I could or should do myself? My time has a value associated with it. If I spend an hour changing my oil, that is an hour I am not working on another project that only I can work on. However before I hire out most tasks, I make certain that I understand all that needs to happen to perform it myself, should I need to. I also weigh the price of the shop doing it against the price, including my time, of doing it myself. Which brings us to the story of my dead battery.
The Jeep had a dead battery on New Year’s Eve. It wasn’t a big deal. It wouldn’t start in the morning and I didn’t need to be anywhere right away and we had another vehicle on site and ready to go. Made me think did I have everything I might need should this have happened in a parking lot late at night? Jumper cables should be kept in the vehicle at all times. I know you need another vehicle to jump start a car, but if another car does come along, won’t you feel a little silly if neither of you have a set of jumper cables?
Jump Start Battery Pack
Even better than a pair of jumper cables is a 12 volt power pack. This is a sealed battery that has a pair of jumper cables built in to it. With one of these you don’t need another car to jump start yours if it dies. I have one and use it small engines and I even used it on the Jeep to jump start it to pull it into the garage to put the new battery in, but I don’t typically carry one in the vehicle for around town driving. I always take one with me if I’m heading into the woods up north, or driving where I think I might be the only vehicle around for a good amount of time. My concern with just dropping one in the car and forgetting it is that all batteries self discharge a certain amount and to keep the charge up, you would need to periodically put a trickle charge on the power pack. I should probably put one in the wife’s car, and remember to charge it overnight once a month. They really are a lot easier to use than a pair of jumper cables. I’m going to make this a priority for January.
Regardless of cables or power pack, everyone over the age of 10 in your family should know how to jump start a vehicle and all of the safety requirements associated with it. Make it a priority for your house. Have the kids help. It may save you a trip across town at 11:00 at night when your teenage daughter calls crying because the car will not start. Or maybe remove a possible excuse for coming home late…There are plenty of good sites explaining how to jump start a car, so I am not going to go into that here, but I will explain some basics on battery maintenance and change out.
Should you determine that your battery is in need of replacing, you will want to remove the battery from the car and bring it with you when you purchase the new battery. This will save you money or a second trip to the store. All automotive batteries have a core charge associated with them. When you buy the battery the store will charge you about $10.00 more than the price listed on the battery. If you bring back the old battery they will refund you the $10.00. I wonder how many people ever get around to actually bringing back the old battery. I was given a bunch of old batteries by a coworker last summer when I started buying deep cycle batteries for a small scale solar project. Obviously he didn’t bring back his old ones.
Besides the old battery you will want a copy of the receipt for your old battery. A lot of batteries come with a 60-72 month warranty. Unfortunately you need to prove when you bought the battery. You receipt will prove this. If you don’t have the old one make certain you save the new one for next time. By the way, the new battery isn’t free if it fails in the 59th month. The company will pro-rate the price of the battery, so if you paid $65.00 for a battery almost 4 years and 11 months ago you might get about a dollar of the new one.
Positive Terminal with Corrosion and Ready to Remove
To remove the old battery:
- Clean away any corrosion that might have built up around the terminals. This will keep it from getting on your or your clothes during the extraction.
- Tape your wrench with electrical tape, this will help prevent accidental shorts to ground. Loosen the bolt at the negative terminal first. You may need to gently pry the lead terminal apart. Do NOT rock the terminal back and forth with the wires. This will destroy them.
- Next you remove the positive battery cable. You may want to secure them out of the way with tape or wire ties.
- There is usually one or two clamps holding the battery down. Loosen and remove these.
- Remove the old battery.
- Install the new battery.
- Re-tighten the hold down clamps.
- Using a wire brush, clean the positive battery cable and re-attach.
- Using a wire brush, clean the negative battery cable and re-attach.
- Dress the two terminals with anti-corrosion compound. Do this once every 6 months as preventative maintenance.
- Check and see if the car will start.
- Clean all tools well to prevent any stray acid from ruining them.
This went long, look for more battery info in future posts.
