Battery Charge

Nov. 10, 2010


   As a tow truck driver many of our calls were for jump starts. This one 
particular day an older, well maintained, mid American sized car, a Buick, 
was in a garage on sixth street in Bremerton. The perfumed and primped 
silver haired old lady had obviously been ready to go out when her car 
wouldn't start and she called the AAA auto service.

   You have to look at it from the customer's point of view. They really 
don't know what's wrong with the car when it won't start. It could be a 
jump start, or with AAA, they can have it towed to the local mechanic. We 
are all so plugged into our routines, jumping in a car a thousand times, 
it's only natural for us to expect it to start. We don't anticipate the 
problems when they happen. A car battery is just not on our list of things 
to check. It's a shock when the car won't start and even more devastating 
because we depend on our car for food gathering, survival, and other 
needs. The psychological impact is profound. We are more than just 
inconvenienced by a loss of mobility; our survival and welfare is 
threated, not to mention the financial impact if we have to tow it down to 
the local mechanic. A running vehicle is at the core of our day to day 
existence. Most of us will go to great lengths to keep it running.

   Traditionally it falls on the husband to take care of the car. The 
mechanics of an automobile are a mystery to the female of the household. 
That's why it was so touching when the silver hair little old lady told me 
it was her husband who had put the battery in the car before he passed 
away. It was a deep cycle, RV battery, good for as many years as you could 
buy. The only catch with a deep cycle battery is that it needs to be 
charged longer. Short trips won't do and a deep cycle battery will run 
down. That's what had happened to this sweet little old lady; to many 
short trips and not enough long trips that would fully charge the battery.

   It was an Interstate battery, the best, from my experience. I imagine 
her husband had bought the battery to protect his wife from automobile 
break downs giving her the best reliability he knew how. There's just a 
certain amount of mechanical aptitude here, when someone knows the value 
of a deep cycle battery like this. It might have been too much battery for 
the car. Maybe this gentleman had known it could be jump started if needed 
and charged again reliably. I used a hygrometer to test the battery fluid 
and a volt meter showed a good charging system. Everything worked. The 
battery was in good shape and the car started with the jump so I advised 
her that she had to charge up the battery longer, not letting it run in 
the garage, but possibly on longer trips or take it to the local mechanic 
to have it checked and charged once in a while. Her husband had left her a 
good battery. 


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