Damn straight. Especially with the skyrocketing cost of batteries these days, I wait until they are shot. Since sometimes one of my vehicles sits a week or so until I use it, it's pretty easy to know when the battery is near death. And when a battery is living it's normal life cycle (not letting it sit dead), it's internal resistance usually starts going up, creating less of a load on the alternator, not more, so there is no extra strain put on the alternator. I usually get about 7 years out of a decent battery.
In addition, I recently took advantage of the "free battery installtion" offered by an auto store chain near me.
Their prices were within a dollar or two of the other stores, so why should I get dirty? I did grab a wrench when I got home just to make sure everything was tight.
They also offered to install my windshield wiper blades, but I let them off the hook on that one. ;-)
How often do brake pedals stick, leaving the lights on and killing the battery?
I gotta admit, that's a new one to me.
The killer in my experience was always the kids who would turn a reading lamp on in the back of the van on the long trips to Grandma's house. We'd all jump out of the van, happy to be there, only to find the battery stone cold dead the next morning.
I've not seen it since the days of the old mechanical arm switches of the 50s/60s and earlier (still have a '58 Chevy C60 grain truck that uses one and it has been known to do so).
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This is a bit off of the original topic, but I bought 2 smart phone chargers on eBay for $10 w/free shipping...the kind with the mini-USB plug on the phone end.
That makes them some pretty cheap wal warts
I left my phone plugged in for a few hours and it did indeed charge the battery. However, when I tried to use the phone while connected to the charger, it started acting all weird, opening the wrong apps and flipping through screens while I wasn't even touching it. As soon as I unplugged the charger, all the weirdness went away.
I tried the other charger and it did the same thing.
The killer in my experience was always the kids who would turn a reading lamp on in the back of the van on the long trips to Grandma's house. We'd all jump out of the van, happy to be there, only to find the battery stone cold dead the next morning.
We see this about 1 or 2 times a year with a fleet of 3000 vehicles. The offending vehicles are almost invariably one particular model that is
18 to 25 years old and use the same brake pedal linkage as a mid 80s - early 90s Chevy S10. It is not actually a sticking brake pedal; the plastic push-button style switch backs out of it's hole enough to stay on. Simply pushing it back in and tightening takes care of the problem. More commonly the switch needs replacement because it fails to turn the lights ON.
Doesn't surprise there are other specific designs that have occasional problems. I suspect there are others as well if one had the necessary data; I just pointed to the one that I've experienced.
Trickle charging does help. At least for dome lights and light loads.
Ever since I started watching Formula One racing I've asked myself why my car can't easily report its critical system data to the main house computer. (-:
Knowing the battery voltage, especially on infrequently used cars, has turned out to be quite useful. Are the new cars and smartphones hooked up on things like voltage, gasoline/charge level, etc?
Just to make clear, these usually aren't cheap originally. They are leftovers, and almost everyone at hamfests charges a dollar each.
Sometimes I take two, one with the right voltage, right AC or DC, and adequate or greater amperage, and oen with the right plug, and combine them.
I did buy a car charger for a cell phone, on Amazon maybe, and it was only about 3 or 4 dollars, and I worried about it being cheap. And t he first time I used it, a message came on the screen that said something wierd like "Inaccurate battery". But the phone was still charged enough to work.
A few months later I was charging it with the original factory indoor charger, and it gave the same message.
But again, the phone was charged. I never did have to buy another battery, and t hat message only appeared once in the car and once in the house over a couple years.
One could measure the output voltage of a charger before using it. I suppose one could look at it on an oscilloscope too. :)
Maybe more often than you think, I had it happen to me on my old Impala. I found out about it one night at a drive-in movie when a guy came up to ask me to take my foot off the brake pedal. My foot was no where near the pedal.
Yes, it still happens. I still see the occaisional vehicle sitting in a driveway or parking lot with the brake light either on or flickering. And my friend's son's Ford F150 had all kinds of things coming on while it sat until he got the windshield re-sealed (removed and replaced). We had a battery disconnect switch on it for a few weeks to keep a charge in the battery until we found the problem. Water was getting into the fuse panel and apparently sending signals to the BCM.
I've just found one but luckily I had an m small stop start battery I've fitted to the booster.I'm unsure if it has a built In charger.there is a kite that says chargein when I out it my adapter from our home kitchen scales.is it a case of just suppling Ower or 240v adapter with max out put of 2am maybe 1.5.
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