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, Fri, 22 Jan 2016 10:33:15
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Someone could write a book on this stuff, I'll try not to.
Any car could be damaged if you jump start it incorrectly. Here are some of my thoughts on this:
-Ensure proper polarity on both vehicles. Check your good Samaritan's connections before you connect your car. Go slow and work together, connecting the negatives first, then the positives.
-Attach the cables firmly on both vehicles. If the positive on either car comes loose, you risk a short if it touches ANY metal.
-Let the donor vehicle charge up the dead battery for at least a few minutes before attempting to start the dead car.
-If the dead car struggles to turn over and you hear relays clicking, then stop immediately and let it charge some more. This is where damage can occur, just like a brownout in your house can damage equipment. The technical explanation for this is that as the voltage drops, the current must increase to maintain the same wattage. At minimum, you risk blowing a fuse.
Battery age means nothing. What matters is how it has been treated. A few deep discharges or even going completely dead and sitting for a while means it probably can't be trusted.
A brand new battery can also easily leave you stranded, since it is in an untested/unknown condition.
Drain on the battery is a big deal. Any aftermarket audio equipment, cigarette lighter phone chargers, etc. will result in a weak or dead battery in a matter of days or weeks.
The smaller Lithium ION boosters are kind of a bit of snake oil. Their rated capacities are fairy tales at the drain currents involved, and they absolutely lose capacity in cold temperatures, as do lead acid. For example, generally speaking, a battery has only 50% capacity at 0F. If you hunt for proper reviews, you will see that none of the chargers work at all for a dead battery, and none work with a weak battery at cold temperatures. Weak batteries at warm temperatures are their only realistic use case.
My recommendation is the following:
-Option 1) Go ahead a buy a new battery, and either bring it along or replace your old battery and bring the old one. Use jumper cables if your battery is weak, swap it out if dead. (If you like, when your trip is done, turn the old battery back in for the core refund. Otherwise keep it around, but give it a little charge every few months. Get an inverter to go along with it for disasters.)
-Option 2) Before heading out for the week, disconnect the negative terminal of your battery. You'll need to use your key to lock and unlock the car. This can potentially be annoying, as you'll have reset your clock and other customizations, and I hear on rare occasions, the radio has to be coddled into functioning again. (On my '01 Viggen, I've never had any trouble with disconnecting the battery for months at a time.)
posted by 216.67.47...
, Fri, 22 Jan 2016 10:33:15
, Sun, 24 Jan 2016 16:15:41, Thu, 28 Jan 2016 15:28:24
, Fri, 22 Jan 2016 13:54:30
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