OneOfMany
Well-Known Member
So last night I'm driving home when my brother calls from our store. Says he is having battery issues (again), bring jumpers and a tools. It's a 03 Cavalier with side post terminals, so grab stuff and meet him.
Sure enough, stone cold dead. He's thinking maybe a bad ground, but the chassis and motor ground were clean. I'm looking at the terminals, and see the PartsSource replacement positive that he put on in the winter. Molded terminal with cable pigtail that he spliced/soldered/wrapped to his original positive cable. We unwrap it, and it looks just fine. Well, the terminal post bolt itself is some crap fake-chromated piece of pot metal, that uses a standard hex head (about 1/2") that holds it on. As we remove it, I find two washers underneath which he said he had to use, otherwise the bolt sits to low in the recess and you cant get a wrench or a socket on. I figured it was probably just not engaging enough threads, so slowly draining the battery. We take the terminals off.
We grab a digital multimeter from the store, and check the battery. It shows around 5.6v. I told him I was surprised he actually made it there that morning. So we load up the battery, and off to the PartSource to have them test it. It ends up testing a little low (11.4v) but supposedly good. Of course, this is after we tell the guy its about 6v.
Back to the car with the now supposedly OK battery. We grab the multimeter - 5.7v. I pop MY hood and check mine - 7.5v and 8.6v running!
I put the terminal back on his with an OSFA wrench, and sure enough, about 1/16" of the bolt head sticks up above the recess.. and the crap pot metal bolt just shreds metal when it slips. WTF! Anyways, after finally snugging it tight, sure enough she turns over. Back to PartSource to get a longer bolt so we can actually put the washers back on in case it happens again (which is usually when it's -20).
We took the multimeter with us, and had the guy check it on a battery.. sure enough 7.5volts! No calibration available of course. Never would have believed it had we all not seen it.
Then we're talking about the positive lead and how the design could never have been actually installed/tested on a battery before release. We grab the EXACT same model/part# (with the "official" NASCAR-approved emblem on it) hanging on the shelf to show him. And WTF! it's now different. Much lower lip on the edge if using a wrench, and a bigger diameter so we could actually put a socket on it. Of course we had to show the guy the one on the car. We all laughed as they probably changed the design AFTER flooding the market with the crap ones.
Somedays.. :wack:
Grant
Sure enough, stone cold dead. He's thinking maybe a bad ground, but the chassis and motor ground were clean. I'm looking at the terminals, and see the PartsSource replacement positive that he put on in the winter. Molded terminal with cable pigtail that he spliced/soldered/wrapped to his original positive cable. We unwrap it, and it looks just fine. Well, the terminal post bolt itself is some crap fake-chromated piece of pot metal, that uses a standard hex head (about 1/2") that holds it on. As we remove it, I find two washers underneath which he said he had to use, otherwise the bolt sits to low in the recess and you cant get a wrench or a socket on. I figured it was probably just not engaging enough threads, so slowly draining the battery. We take the terminals off.
We grab a digital multimeter from the store, and check the battery. It shows around 5.6v. I told him I was surprised he actually made it there that morning. So we load up the battery, and off to the PartSource to have them test it. It ends up testing a little low (11.4v) but supposedly good. Of course, this is after we tell the guy its about 6v.
Back to the car with the now supposedly OK battery. We grab the multimeter - 5.7v. I pop MY hood and check mine - 7.5v and 8.6v running!
I put the terminal back on his with an OSFA wrench, and sure enough, about 1/16" of the bolt head sticks up above the recess.. and the crap pot metal bolt just shreds metal when it slips. WTF! Anyways, after finally snugging it tight, sure enough she turns over. Back to PartSource to get a longer bolt so we can actually put the washers back on in case it happens again (which is usually when it's -20).
We took the multimeter with us, and had the guy check it on a battery.. sure enough 7.5volts! No calibration available of course. Never would have believed it had we all not seen it.
Then we're talking about the positive lead and how the design could never have been actually installed/tested on a battery before release. We grab the EXACT same model/part# (with the "official" NASCAR-approved emblem on it) hanging on the shelf to show him. And WTF! it's now different. Much lower lip on the edge if using a wrench, and a bigger diameter so we could actually put a socket on it. Of course we had to show the guy the one on the car. We all laughed as they probably changed the design AFTER flooding the market with the crap ones.
Somedays.. :wack:
Grant
