When you look outside our motorhome, there is no garage. There is a cargo trailer that is our "moveable garage" for the scoots and a few other things.
When I talked to Steph last night, she told me that their Equinox wouldn't start yesterday, so they took their other car to work. I told her we'd come by this morning and take a look at their car.
They have a garage. :-) Putting a multi-meter on their battery, it was clear that thing was shot. Only a bit over a year old on that battery. The desert is hard on batteries: hotter than the gates of Hell in the summer time, and occasionally below freezing during winter nights. Lots of air conditioner use.
In most cars, swapping out a battery is pretty straight-forward. No so much with the Equinox... to even get to where you can see the battery, you have to move the ECM (electronic control module). Doing a load test on the battery (now that we could see it) confirmed... DOA.
Good ol' Wally World has decent batteries, with good warranties (full replacement for 36 months, prorated for another 2 years after that). We swapped their old battery for the core charge, and went back to their garage.
For the record, it isn't just the ECM that needs to be removed. The bracket that holds the ECM is also what keeps the battery in place - yep, that has to go. Before you can get to all that, you have to remove one of the plastic panels in the engine compartment before you can get to the bolts to remove the aforementioned bracket. New battery in place, some fidgeting to realign the bracket, connect the cables, put it all back together, and...
The car fired right up. :-)
With the hours they put in, they didn't have time to mess with this right now (end of the quarter); glad we were here to be able to give them a hand. Sure is nice to have a garage.
2 comments:
The "Autozone" Battery gave up after about a Year in my Wifes CRV-- She does allot of stopping for a few Mins. and Restarting.. I don't know if that has much to do with the Battery giving out that soon-- I do know a Battery only has so many "Cycles" in it.. Discharge/Charge..
I brought the Battery back to Autozone and was given a new one for free!! Easy Change over too-- I'll change the CRV Battery every Year if I can get a Replacement for Free.. As long as my Wife doesn't get stuck anywhere-- I told her the warning signs of a Battery going bad-- Slow Cranking-- Starts harder than usual..
Your "Blond" Might know more than my "Brunet"-- Lol..
PS: Clean that Engine Compartment!! A Clean Engine is a Happy Engine-- IMHO..
Yep. Not my vehicle, and there is blowing dust in the desert. I replaced the battery, it will be up to my daughter and son-in-law to clean the engine compartment.
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