[AT] Batteries

[Robinson]

	I need to put one of those desulfating (sp?) chargers on my 
fall wish list. Thanks for mentioning it Don G.
	I have always said that at least a fourth of the batteries 
that are replaced are because of bad connections. People 
hear that slow RRRRrrrrRRRRRrrrr....... and think their 
battery is shot. They go to Wally World and get a new one 
and trade in the old one. Sure enough it fires right up so 
they tell them selves the old battery was actually done for. 
It never occurs to many of them that the terminals were not 
making good connections and that the old battery may 
actually be down because even when a surge load like a 
starter might feed through that the charge from the 
alternator may not have been getting through for days and 
the connection can fail rapidly when it gets started 
corroding. Back when I was selling batteries I never bought 
new batteries for my use. Enough good batteries were brought 
in for trade-in that I stayed well supplied. Sometimes they 
didn't even need charging, sometimes a charge was needed but 
they held it fine after I charged them. At about that time 
we were also collecting (buying) batteries for recycling. 
Many of those were still quite good as well. I have always 
been a little surprised by how many people do not have a 
battery charger, I consider it a standard part of owning a 
motor vehicle. Those of us that tinker with old tractors and 
stuff are of course much more likely to think in terms of 
connections and such than the guys or gals that never lift a 
hood. Most of them need to have very good jobs to either 
keep new cars or pay for someone else to make all the little 
repairs on an older one. The days of cheap shop labor are 
pretty much gone, too much overhead.
	Most of the time when someone walks into a service center 
of any kind and says "I think I need a new battery" they get 
a new battery. Better shops do check to see that the system 
is charging but many just pull the old battery and install 
the new one without testing anything. I have a friend that 
has worked in a Sears auto center forever and most of the 
employees use old batteries from customers cars. They just 
turn in an old dud from home to replace the customers 
trade-in in the stack of old batteries waiting for recycling.

	My electrical mantra...
	Check the grounds, check the grounds, check the grounds... 
   :-)  There are always 2 conductors. + and -   one is a 
wire, the other is the vehicle. Both are of equal 
importance...  :-)
-- 



"farmer"

My latest list "No Nonsense Horse" (includes donkeys & mules).
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Francis Robinson
Central Indiana USA
robinson at svs.net