My love / hate relationship with car batteries
Car batteries and I have a love / hate relationship. I love what they can do, start your car, and I hate it when they don’t. Recently, we have had a cold spell in the northeast United States, and my handicap van did not start. I have a solar charger, and still, it did not start.
The AAA battery
I have a battery from AAA, yet I did not call AAA. AAA will not give me a battery boost after 5 starts. So if my van doesn’t need a new battery, I may call someone else. Otherwise, AAA charges me $45 to start my van. So, rather than use my 5 calls to AAA, I call Allstate Motor Club. I also have BP Motor Club. I have found that both Allstate and BP Motor Club are good for light duty boosts, and AAA is good for both light duty and heavy duty boosts.
Light duty boost
In this case, all I needed was a light duty boost. Apparently, someone left a light on in the van and even with a solar charger, which I have, the battery will begin to die. I like to buy batteries from AAA, because they will come to the house to install a new battery. Also, they will come to the house to change a dying battery. Remember to ask for battery service which may only be available 9 am to 5 pm on Mondays through Fridays.
AAA batteries are very good
Of course, there is that $45 charge, so I try not to call them too often. By the way, I have found that the AAA batteries are very good batteries that last years with the regular use of the vehicle.
Notorious Me
I am notorious for not maintaining regular use of the van. I have Multiple Sclerosis, and I only use the van when I really need it, which means I regularly deal with dying batteries. The van has to be often started and allowed ro run in the driveway, otherwise it would rarely start when I need it.
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A brake check
Recently, a friend of ours decided that her brakes may be going bad and she took her car to a service center to check the brakes. She was told that the brakes were fine, but she would need a new battery. About 2 months ago, she had a new AAA battery installed in her car. AAA will make good on their warranty if you have the receipt. So the decision came down to does she have the AAA receipt?
Keep the receipt
Apparently, she did not keep the AAA receipt, and she got a new Exide battery. Exide also makes very good batteries that last many years. However, this service center did not install the battery correctly, and the battery had to be reinstalled, so that it worked.
The power wheelchair batteries
Recently, the power wheelchair that I use around the house, I use a different power wheelchair for the van, went bad. This was no surprise because the batteries had lasted 4 1/2 years. The manufacturer says the batteries will last only one year. I have found that keeping the wheelchair plugged in the wall year round makes the batteries last longer.
The power wheelchair uses two batteries.
This is a smaller size than usual, because the Golden Tech, Lite rider power wheelchair has a special battery case. This battery case does come with batteries pre-installed, however at a substantial price. This does make changing the batteries convenient, but costly. I have a handyman who will do work around the house and change the power wheelchair batteries for a good price.
Panasonic calling
I have a landline telephone. It is a Panasonic cordless phone system. It uses rechargeable AAA batteries.
What is an Odec?
I bought Odec rechargeable batteries for the cordless phones. The original Panasonic rechargeable batteries had not stopped working, but they were not lasting as long as I like and were many years old. The Odec batteries did not come charged and needed to be charged and discharged and recharged 3 times before they fully hold a charge. However, they are a great price for 16 rechargeable batteries.
>>>>Buy 16 Odec Rechargeable Batteries<<<<
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Work in progress
I am currently working on that but it seems that I may have a couple of dead batteries. This is not a big problem since I have many of them, and they are cheap. Also, they are probably not slow discharge batteries, because they came completely discharged, which is unusual for slow discharge rechargeable batteries.
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