car battery dead

Here we go. Give up the clunker to Obama and get the new car?

Vladimir Vassilevsky DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

Similar. Mine was simply a little push-rod needing adjustment and tightening of the lock nut... '64 Dodge Dart.

...Jim Thompson

It's a 2-year old Honda Fit. My wife never cared about cars, but she loves this one. It is sort of cute.

I bet the dealers are marking up the cars that get that 4.5K subsidy. And I bet the program is a net energy loss. And I bet they extend it by another couple of billion dollars.

John

You don't have a current limited lab power supply? I always use my HP6002 (and a diode in series because of the internal crow-bar) to charge car batteries.

Which is a good thing. They get replaced 100% non-pro-rated if they fail in the first two years. I'm surprised they don't have a phoenix clause: use them in phoenix and the warranty is void.

The new cars are bugged. That's why there's all that hype over the "cash for clunkers" scam - to ensure you have to buy a new Government Motors car.

Thanks, Rich

That would only cost me a couple of hundred times what a cheap charger would.

John

Not likely. I have a genuine clunker (14 year old pickup truck, 191K). It's worth about 4x as a clunker as its sales value (and about 50x trade-in), but has been on-road and continuously insured, etc so it qualifies - it's just the sort of thing they want. But because "clunker value" only applies to brand-new vehicles, it's still worthless to bother - "klunker money" might just about compensate for the value lost as the new thing drives off the lot. I'll do better either clunking it along (the average repair tends to exceed it's resale value at this point), or taking far less money than I'd need for a new car/truck and buying a newer used car/truck.

I did toy with the idea, but the economics are just not in it, even when I contemplated a multi-step deal clunking it for a new small car, and then selling a used small car of greater value to punt money towards a newer used truck.

I hate rust, or at least the effect it has on vehicles in the Northeast. Bring on an all-stainless and plastic/composite truck (preferably with a "wimpy, and fuel efficient" motor.)

Every bad car battery I've had in the last 22 years died with an open cell. The vehicles were driven at least a couple times a week with no sign of trouble, till you turned the key and got nothing. One had just been shut of five minutes and was open when I tried to start it again. None had low electrolyte, bad alternator or regulators. replace the battery, and drive several years with no problems.

I just use my bench PSU.

Wait, you don't have a home lab?

Hell no. I get enough electronics during the daytime.

John

They have antipsychotic medicines that can help you.

How about all those abandoned laptop chargers? Most are around 3A and it should be possible to modify down to 12V. The ones from older Compaqs actually were almost at the correct voltage. Plus nice and small, size of two cigarette packs.

Absolutely. Despite the harsh Vermont Winters My 2001 Ranger still has its original battery. I am sorta surprised it's made a whole Alabama summer too.

Vermont and New York required vehicle inspections every year. In Vermont vehicles newer than 1996 require emissions tests which is basically just an "are you OK" query to the computer. New York had the up the pipe test on all vehicles (exemption for cars with antique plates).

Within a decade it'll be by GPS, the same way they'll tax by the miles driven.

That would never make it in VT or NY. In NY it was also an automatic failure if the engine didn't match the VIN. Though most mechanics were too incompetent the catch it, some were.

:On Tue, 04 Aug 2009 23:16:27 -0700, John Larkin wrote: :>My wife's car is dead. It's in the garage, a hard push uphill to get :>it out to jump-start, so I figured I'd build a battery charger. We : :use the alternator. do the hard push uphill jumpstart routine once :more, and drive it somewhere that sells batteries. Replace the :failed battery. : :Next time, replace the battery when it starts to fail instead when it :is completely shot. Make sure there's nothing else draining the battery :like a bad alternator when the car is stopped.

My last battery started the car one evening and next morning it wouldn't budge the starter motor an inch. Recommending preventative replacement doesn't work where you have no indication that the battery is about to fail?

It is fairly common for "sudden" battery failure to occur during cold weather in my experience. That is not a scientific explanation, just an observation.

Most of my battery failures in AZ seem to be failure of the inter-cell connector; or a shorted cell.

...Jim Thompson

in

ALl of my battery failures have been shorted cells, too. Even if they aren't mistreated in the AZ sun, crud eventually does 'em in.

Well, my VW still has the original battery in it, and it is now five years old! Has spent four of those out here in the desert...

Charlie