January 16, 200917 yr as of 7am 1-16-09 , - 18 below , not including the wind blowing , got to work outside all day ,
January 16, 200917 yr Ben - first thing, get the battery out of the van and brought in somewhere halfway warm and get it fully charged!! extreme cold WILL kill a battery. it is very cold here as well - around -17F give or take - wind chills around -35...no fun, and I feel for anyone that has to be out in it. so cold that they have cancelled school!
January 16, 200917 yr hope you get your wife's ride sorted out.. been unusually cold here as well..almost got below seventy last night:grin: but I do miss winter... Kaz
January 16, 200917 yr hope you get your wife's ride sorted out..been unusually cold here as well..almost got below seventy last night:grin: but I do miss winter... Kaz Sure - rub it in...
January 16, 200917 yr Still wont start im takeing drastic measures now.:horse:zzz:Flame: Be careful!!! Is the pulley a metal one or composite?
January 16, 200917 yr Author Ok i tried to jump my van with the subaru and got nothing. So either my jumper cables are garbage, or this van battery is toast. How can i be sure if i bring it down to autozone and they test it there not just trying to rip me off with a new battery.
January 16, 200917 yr If it got discharged, then sat out in the cold, it's probably full of ice.... so it's toast. In that case, it probably won't show a voltage at all, especially under any load. And with the jumpers hooked up to the other car, it might show full voltage of the other battery, because it isn't drawing any current. Do some voltage measurements first.... then you know yourself whether it's good or toast.
January 16, 200917 yr Author i dont have a volt meter something i do which is not smart. but i take the positive and negative when hooked up to the battery and tap them together to make sure ive got something. When i did it to the van. Nothing.
January 16, 200917 yr i dont have a volt meter something i do which is not smart. but i take the positive and negative when hooked up to the battery and tap them together to make sure ive got something. When i did it to the van. Nothing. They start at about $4 at Harbor freight. The cheap ones do tend to become inaccurate if their battery gets low, but other than that, they work okay. Enough for some basic diagnostics, at least. I wouldn't use a cheap one for research grade work... If you didn't get a big spark... then it's probably somewhere between kind of dead and pretty dead :-\
January 16, 200917 yr ben- if the battery was discharged on these cold nights, then the battery is in fact going to be ruined. the water in them, without a charge, will freeze, and that actually ruins the cells in the battery. It will bulge the sides of the case to the battery, a bulged case means it froze at some point, and is no good, except for a core charge for a new replacement battery. A charged battery, left in the cold, will not freeze, and the charged ions keep it warm enough not to freeze. In the future, if you have a drained battery, and it gets to sub zero temperatures, then remove the battery from the vehicle, bring into the house. that saves it and can be charged up with a charger. but once it has froze, its toast, dead, no life, forever done for... anyhow.....
January 16, 200917 yr RS took a coupe turns to start this morning but finally did. I am thinking battery might not last another winter. We haven't seen temperatures like this since '03 so it has been a shock for everyone. I took a screen-shot for such occasion:
January 16, 200917 yr Author VROOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM Strange thing it started up when i went to attack it (Violet knows better not to mess with me). I went and had it tested on the car anyways. Not fully dead but pretty much there. 4 year old Factory battery with only 500 cold cranking amps. Pretty lame. So tomorrow its getting replaced with a brand new DieHard. I wanted to go interstate but ive got sears gift cards so to easy to get a good battery for next to nothing. I think there like 695-795 cold cranking amps. Mmmmmmmmmmm Power.
January 16, 200917 yr Glad you got her started, maybe a hairdryer for you PS pump if you dont have that other stuff the guys were mentioning. Good luck:)
January 17, 200917 yr we just made it to positive digits temp wise and I'm supposed to leave for FL in this (our travel trailer) in a couple days?????
January 18, 200917 yr Also, this is kinda stupid but has anyone ever put house insalation in the door pannels and roof to quiet down there cars and maybe keep some heat inside of them. I've done it before. I used the mylar backed insulation that almost looks like bubble wrap. I used it on my wife's old Dodge Stratus when we owned it because the car sat out in direct sunlight for the better part of the day(8-9 hrs.) After installing it above the headliner and also the doors and floor boards, the change in temps was very dramatic, especially when a sun visor was used. I might also add, that this particular car also had tinted windows(35% front/ 20% rear). It(the insulation, not window tint) also works quite well for wrapping intercooler piping. Patrick
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now