Winter, Car Batteries and NOT getting stung....

Depends on the car, but generally not for a number of reasons; manual cars often have Dual Mass Flywheels which don't like being bumped, nor does the modern charging and engine control systems; in some cases, you simply can't - autos, like mine for example but also cars which do not switch the fuel rail on until various sensors have given the 'OK' to start.

 

You can knacker a DMF for a start - that is a clutch & DMF swap out that usually runs into the four figure region quite easily.

You can generally jump start them with a boost pack, but even then you need to follow the correct connection procedures to avoid damage to some of the electronic control systems. On quite a few cars now, if you change the battery, you need to have the relevant computer to code the new battery into the car.

 

Yikes! It certainly pays to shop around. I had no idea Stop/Start batteries are so expensive. Out of interest I googled my car and found a similar range of prices. Fingers crossed my 5 year old Volvo will keep going, it had the 'low battery' warning in the early days of lockdown as it was hardly used, but since we are now using it a couple of times a week it seems OK.

 

If you do find you need one @JWK I cannot recommend Tayna highly enough. Excellent service and around the cheapest you can find anywhere.

 

On the back of the door in trap 3

 

Oh yes - here is one of my finest, you may have seen it...

Here I sits, broken hearted,
Paid my penny, and only farted

 

There's no hope for me then! I can't do Lego

It's not quite so easy to charge the battery on my car if you're a mechanical ignoramus like me. Last year a plumber came to do some work at our place and when he went to go home he found his battery had gone flat. Not really a problem as I drove my car up to his and we were going to start his car with jump leads. Opened the bonnet of my car and we couldn't see the battery at first. We eventually spotted the live terminal but no earth terminal (everything was under plastic covers).

So I looked in my handbook and under the section that mentioned batteries it said to look at the on board hand book. So I sat in the car and, for the first time, looked at the computerised handbook where it said that to charge the battery you need to clamp the earth lead to any part of the body of the car. We did this and it worked. I then had a thought . What if it was my battery that had gone flat? I wouldn't have been able to access my on board handbook to find out what to do!!!