It’s early Saturday afternoon at Granville Island Market in Vancouver. A light rain is falling. We have just returned to our vehicle when my friend puts her key in the ignition and tries to start her late model SUV. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Nothing. Rrrrrrrrrr. Nothing. “Umm, I think you have a dead battery,” I tell her. A few more tries and the igniter starts making a clicking sound. ‘That’s not good,’ I think to myself.

No big deal. “Do you have any booster cables?” I ask, “No? OK, I’ll go find some.” Hoping out of the dead vehicle, I set off, walking around the market, flagging down passing motorist, and asking the same questions over and over again.

Out of the eight people I stopped, including two Volvo drivers, none of them carried booster cables.

Last year, BCAA responded to over 200,000 calls from their members whose cars wouldn’t start. The cause? Dead batteries.

Often in ferry line-ups, especially when there has been a lengthy delay, it is common to see cars with their hoods up, waiting for a boost. Running the radio, or watching a video, drain their vehicle’s battery, leaving motorists stranded.

Boosting a Dead Battery

When it comes to boosting a dead batter, there are a couple of things you need to be aware of, according to Dave Weloy of BCAA.

First, build a surface a charge with the other vehicle.  This is done by hooking up the booster cables to each vehicle and waiting five to 10 minutes before you start the engines.

Second, be careful when starting the dead car’.  Most drivers press down on the accelerator and to rev the engine, thereby sending a high voltage back to your vehicle. This can blow your ignition modules.  Have the driver of the dead battery turn on all their instruments i.e. heater, radio, fan etc.  This will absorb the extra energy that’s being produced and save your car from a power surge.

Also, according to BCAA’s website, you should have your battery tested as part of your regular vehicle inspection. The actual life of a battery is three to five years.  People assume their batteries are going to last much longer than they actually do. It is easy to test the condition of the battery without having to remove it.

You can help maintain your battery by checking the water levels and topping them up with distilled water.  Cleaning the corrosion from your battery’s connection point is also recommended.  This is done by removing the clamps and scrubbing the metal with a wire brush, baking soda and water.

Despite having a BCAA membership, it was faster to pay a cabbie $15 for a boost. Note to self - cab drivers always carry booster cables. Not that I’m gloating or anything, but your’s truly does carry them. So if you are ever stuck on the side of the road, or your car won’t start in the ferry line up, if you spot a silver Jeep with “CottageDaily.com” on the back window, flag me down. I will be happy to give you a boost.Cheers,

Julie

PS. Red Positive - Black Negative

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 at 6:55 pm and is filed under Fix It. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.