Talking batteries with AAA's Jason Carrara. Car batteries and the Hindenburg-related?

W. A. T. D. Presents John Paul, the car doctor, all things automotive. Have questions? Call

or text 781-837-4900. Now, here's John Paul, the car doctor.

Well, good Sunday morning everyone and welcome to another edition of the car doctor program

on award-winning 95.9 W. A. T. D. and it's award-winning because of the way Jesse just

jumped right in because the news didn't work. So I like to think that we're award-winning

because of the way that I read the weather. It could be that too. Absolutely. Either way.

Observe the weather. You do look out the window too. I've been known to do that from time

to time. Yeah. Sometimes shed a tear from one of my eyes while I look at it. It's beautiful

outside. Okay. Yeah. There we go. Just like that. Anyway, welcome to, I don't know, show

two of the car doctor program for 2026, I guess. So we're here and we're here to help you with

your car problems. And even though it is going to be a reasonably warm week above 30 degrees,

it's a good time to think still about the battery in your car. And typically,

we see battery life in New England and the Northeast. Batteries last somewhere close to

five years. I think I heard once, a couple months short of that time. But at AAA, we put a lot of

batteries in and we've been in the battery business for quite a while. And with us on the phone is a

coworker of mine, Jay Carrera. He is the senior manager of automotive training for AAA Northeast.

Jay, did I get that anywhere near right? I think you did. That's as close as I remember it,

anyway. There you go. Yeah, titles don't really mean a lot, at least to most people.

So first up, before we go, tell us what you do with AAA.

Morning and happy Sunday, anyway. So I'm heavily involved in the battery program, coincidentally,

as you introduced the idea and topic of batteries. But I actually maintain

some semblance of a foothold of all the training for the roadside technicians in the

five states within our AAA club territory that go out and provide service to our

members out there for towing, for battery service, jump squats, tire change, lockouts,

when you run out of fuel, etc. So I'm one of the folks who helps prepare all the technicians out

there that you might need. And it's not just the AAA employees that are the technicians,

it's also the contracted fleet technicians that help train as well, right? Yep, that's

that's a very accurate statement there. We actually have a pretty robust and pretty awesome network

of contractors who provide service, who may not work directly for and may not be your and I

co workers at AAA provide service on the contract for us and they do a great job probably

over 75% of the services we deliver are probably out from that network of contracted providers.

And you work with those folks to try to let them know, you know, some of the some of the details

that you've found out through your trainings and so forth about some differences in, you know,

how to look at things and and maybe sometimes how to look at things a little bit differently. I know,

you know, when we had or we still try to get vehicles going whenever we can and that can be

as simple as, you know, airing up a low tire to putting on a spare to, you know, occasionally,

you know, wrap it on the bottom of a fuel tank to try to get a fuel pump to work again, right?

Right. Lots of simple things like that can can be the reason somebody might have a car doesn't

start up. Sometimes we'll do things as simple as, you know, just grab a hold of that shift

for your transmission and push it all the way up into the park or move it and wiggle it back

and forth from neutral park once and see if it starts up, clean some battery terminals that

often get corroded that are really just kind of part of normal maintenance but maybe get forgotten

and lots of different things like that can help solve quick issues to avoid having to be towed.

Yeah, I know I was just recently a neighbor had a Volvo that wouldn't start and I think it wasn't

it was her friend that was visiting or something and she's like I'm gonna have to get her towed and

I looked at it and well the whole issue it wouldn't start was because the key fob battery was dead

and I said well let's try, you know, holding the key fob against the start button to see what

happens and boom it started up and I said well you need to go out and buy a new battery new little

battery for this and your problems will magically go away so it's even things as simple as that,

right? It is and it's funny you bring that up because now there's more than one battery in a car

right now you've got key fob batteries, you've got the battery under the hood we used to talking

about if you're driving a hybrid or an electric vehicle you've got the 5 volt attraction battery

and you have all sorts of complications from that kind of stuff but even that the key fob you just

referenced right there I mean it's a lifetime in the automotive industry and I'm still learning

quite literally every day and we all at AAA learn different things from the manufacturers

from doing research from in the field experience about simple things like how to hold your key up

to some random spot in the car that you don't think does anything that actually helps capture a

radio frequency and override the signal to your security system when your key goes dead because

of a dead battery, you know, I mean how many people would know that on many Land Rovers if you hold

your key fob up or even BMWs to the bottom of the steering wheel that little plastic panel underneath

it that it might help override that that's it's all interesting information we try to

obtain and we try to provide to all the contracted providers and our fleets too.

Yeah no it really is you know it's that kind of information that we share that can really help

and and you're right and it's you mentioned you know there's a key fob battery the 12 volt battery

that we typically have had in cars since the 60s I guess and then in some cars like some

jeeps and volvos for instance they have more than one battery because one just wasn't enough so

you had to put a second smaller battery in to help with the start-stop system for instance.

I just I just want to help the audience with one point there you just mentioned that 12 volt

battery since the 60s that's probably right I think it may even be the late 50s but in either

of those cases I get to say since before I was born but I don't think you do.

I know it's so sad so sad that I'm older than I'm older than anybody it seems like yes but yeah.

And then you know and we kind of look at this say well do we really need

two batteries and and now and and I guess from I can remember going to school a long time ago

and they were talking about 48 volt battery systems in cars and we haven't got there yet

with the exception maybe the Tesla Cybertruck is that might be running a 48 volt battery.

I think that to my knowledge and and I certainly don't profess to know everything but I I don't

know of anything besides the Cybertruck that ever really got there. I remember some discussions

probably 20 years ago now about 42 volt systems and things of that nature that just never really

came to mass production for wishing for whatever reasons but yes we definitely have plenty of

cars out there with multiple 12 volt batteries in them now because so many of the cars the folks

listening to this radio show and everyone else are driving have um that that magical stop start

feature that when you come to a stop your car turns off so now we've in many cases added an

extra battery in there a smaller one to keep all your heater fan and and preacher comforts going

when your engine stops to take some of the demand off of the starting battery that's under the hood.

And I am willing to bet that or or we'll go out on a whim and say at least once a week I hear from

a reader or a listener who says how do I make that start stop stop system not work forever and ever

and ever. How do I make the start stop start stopping. Yeah exactly yeah and there's so many

different ways to do it right on I just drove home from doing morning errands and my wife's

24 GMC terrain and it's got a button and I have to push the button every time I get in the car

and start the engine up if I don't want it to turn on and off at stop lights and they are nice and

you know that's convenient but you have to do it they're resets every time you cycle the ignition

then there's other I remember a friend of mine had a trailhawk a Jeep Cherokee trailhawk and it had

some sort of sequence with a seat belt in a particular set of order pushing this the ignition

button that allowed it to turn off it can be anything. Yeah I know I see people with pickup

trucks fairly frequently now with the trailer trailer light test thing that basically it's just

the thing that plugs into the trailer light plug as it the test to see if it works but when you

plug that in it shuts off the start start stop system so yeah it also shuts off the backup

camera which is annoying if you like the backup camera so I think some people actually like it

and I mean I think the intent is a laudable intent if it actually came to mechanical fruition to

to deal with fuel economy but I don't know that necessarily translate as well as in the real world

as I did in a laboratory test environment and I think I'm not a hundred percent sure but I think

this actually moves to the federal level and the the agency levels to remove the requirement for

that going forward in the next couple of years. Yeah I heard that as well and the the other

interesting thing about it which I learned which no one really talks about when that system was put

in the car the EPA automatically credits you a little bit better fuel economy so uh if you

know if you were as old as me you would remember and maybe you actually saw it once

standard shift vehicles that had a that had an upshift light so you drive it and this little

light would come on and tell you you need to shift to the next gear if you're a vehicle

manufacturer and you put that light in your car you gained a half a mile per gallon whether it

actually did anything or not and the start stop system you gain fuel economy whether it's real or

not so but anyway back back to batteries because batteries make you know everything work in your

car pretty much and you know the I started by saying the average life of a battery in the northeast

is somewhere around five years although occasionally we get one that lasts a really long time I remember

talking to our battery manager and he said they replaced a 15 or 18 year old battery so

occasionally we see some long life under batteries right we do three to five years is the general

number that the industry folks will use in this area if we were in Arizona they would never say

three they would say one and a half to two right because the heat and the sun would be cooking it

but in our it really does depend on the climate and the temperatures more than anything it's actually

funny you bring up the oldest battery just last week one of my longer tenure technicians in one

of our local AAA fleets sent me pictures of a 2007 Mercedes sedan that he was working on

and the it was stored in the garage and the lady who owned it asked him to replace the battery

and he did and he took pictures of the date code and on a lot of German import batteries the original

batteries are stamped with the production sequence right in the top of a negative battery terminal

and he was able to ascertain and send me the pictures because he was absolutely stunned

the oldest battery he's ever seen taken out and myself as well it was the original battery

29th week of production from 2006 was when the battery was manufactured it's making it almost

19 and a half years old what can we do to try to for the average person listening to try to maybe

not get 19 years out of a battery I know in my two personal cars I think I squeaked let's see the

one car I think I squeaked eight years out of the battery but that last month before I replaced

the battery it was pretty shaky at that point but I want to just see how far I could go without my

wife calling me up and saying she's stranded at the supermarket and in and the other car that I

drive a little bit more often that one I think I think that battery was probably six or so years old

but it was still actually in pretty good shape but I just it's a battery it's the car I count on a

lot more often so I decided to replace the battery in it but what can people do to try to make sure

their battery is going to last as long as possible given whatever the circumstances

mostly in my experience and correct me if you seem differently but it's it's mostly about use

and regular use is good for your battery it's it's not like it's got a certain amount of

battery in it and if you use it too much it'll go away forever one of the things that isn't good

for batteries is to sit being unused but still plugged in right so you can't go out and disconnect

your battery from your car which would cause it to not ever be drained but regular use starting

the car up every day taking it for good long ride with the charging systems able to saturate the

battery back to a full state of charge and that that can take quite a while you know that's not

just drive down the street two or three minutes in 20 mile an hour traffic at two or three stop lights

uh that's not going to do it that's actually going to discharge your battery and not give it a chance

to really be recharged you want to go for some some good steady cruise drives at sustained speeds

if you know 40 45 50 or even highway speeds for 15 20 minutes half an hour if you could do that

probably every day that would be ideal for your battery if you can't do it every day and you can

still only do it two times a week um you still need to be doing that that'll maximize the life

and keep the state of charge up in the battery because your car has uh dozens at this point I

think is a fair term um of computers inside it and computers need electricity and to remember

things they need memory and so they're always pulling on your car battery just a little little bit

even when it's off and you've left it alone for a couple of days so that drains the battery out

you've got to replenish that energy so regular use um is is is key and if you do if you do use

far regularly and you're someone who puts 12 13 14 000 miles a year on your car you'll probably

have some pretty you'll probably experience some pretty good battery life six seven maybe even eight

or nine years uh if you're not and you're driving a thousand miles a year or two thousand miles a

year uh you may struggle to keep that battery fully charged uh without going on running the car really

every day and if you can't do that but you are fortunate enough to have a garage something like

a battery tender might be a good alternative to not driving the cars often right absolutely I uh I

have a garage outside and there's three cars inside that that are all sitting on battery tenders now

and actually I was under the hood a couple of weeks ago a couple of them and realized that the

batteries are actually seven years old at this point but they will still start the cars up if I

go and ask them to because they live on a battery tender when I'm not driving um battery tenders

are just a little automated maintaining system maintaining trickle charger uh lots of different

words we could use for them they're readily available from a lot of different companies

not all that much money and usually somewhere between 25 and 50 or 60 bucks then on how sophisticated

you want or like I have one that's a multi bank it does up to four cars so that one's a little

more expensive but a single car one's the 20 the 30 35 all in a boat yeah no I've found that I've

found that on the vehicle you know I'm I have a vehicle that sits for six months at a time

and having it on a battery tender helps a lot one of the things we hear a lot when someone

gets a jump start and we'll get the jump packs in a minute but someone gets a jump start

and you hear the kindly neighbors say just let an idol in the driveway for 15 or 20 minutes

he'll be fine uh as you pointed out with your you know take your car run a long drive

what does sitting idle in the driveway doesn't do anything or it doesn't do much no no and and

this is actually a good thing to touch on right because I did say take it for a drive for a while

maybe a half an hour or so um but that's a very different use case uh than after a jump start after

a jump start means that your battery was so deeply discharged that it didn't have anywhere near the

energy it needed and it's uh very low on state of charge probably at a zero percent state of

charge if we measured it electrically uh that's a very different situation than a car that just

started up on its own and just needs a little bit of a top off and um I'm going to reach back to

to the days of my my childhood and before that to say the advice you just heard that friendly

neighbor give was valid in the 1960s and 70s and even in the early 1980s before cars had computers

and there were really no electronics in the car um while the car was running so that that

idling time would be enough for the generator or the alternator to replenish that battery because

nothing else would be taking energy as that generator alternator spins except the battery

but now we ever since the late 1980s with the advent of fuel injection in pretty much everything

you have computers you have electric cellinoids clicking on and off

under the times a minute with the fuel injection you have fuel pumps that require electricity

all that stuff is taking the electricity that the alternator is making as you drive

and now driving the car is not replenishing the battery like it used to and the reality is

and we have to we have to talk about this a lot um in the AAA world um but the reality of recharging

a battery that's been discharged um is that it can take hours many many hours often from

four to six it is much as 14 and 16 hours before we recharge a battery that was discharged so much

that you needed a jumpstart from also from your neighbor or whoever um so much so that even very

recently now interstate batteries i'm noticing on their their retail websites has a frequently asked

question section that talks about this specifically and calls out that when your car needed a jump

start uh driving it is not going to sufficiently recharge that battery and you need to stop and

have it put on a battery charger or a battery tender yeah absolutely and i'm still a believer in

sort of like how i would cook ribs low and slow um and charge a battery the same way

i was watching youtube because why not and there was a guy who was saying no no you

you put your you put your dead battery on the charger and crank it up and when you smell it

it's good to go that sounds sounds like an interesting recipe um i've never i've never

performed automotive repair uh based on smell as i would in my kitchen when i'm cooking something so

that's a new take on things i won't dismiss it out of hand but i'll say it's a little different

than it's just a juxtapose to what i would say which is more in the greens with you john yeah

low and slow is is a the safest way um because batteries generate heat when you're on high um

gas uh batteries can can give off hydrogen and oxygen gases and i'm too i'm told all the time

i want to use this example i'm old uh but the hindenburg or the giant zeppelin that blew up

blew up because sparks got near hydrogen gases i'm told that uh the younger generations don't

know what i'm talking about when they make that reference and i don't have a newer one

that's the only one i can use but we don't want to give any reason for hydrogen to light off

that's right to throw and also uh you know the internals of the batteries are made of

lead and metal alloy plates um and heat and higher voltages from when you're charging at

high rates um has a better chance of warping or creating damage across any of those grid plates

any of the cell connectors because it's transferring that heat constantly that's not really great for

the internals of the battery i wouldn't i wouldn't think so and the i and the terminology i think

they also use was boil the battery which doesn't sound like a good idea to me uh no it's not something

i would necessarily recommend but i have i will say that if you have a battery with caps that you

can remove um the a low maintenance battery um or semi maintenance free battery and uh on any battery

charger if you were to pull the cap off quickly and look you would see the battery kind of gurgling

around a little bit in each cell um as that was happening but that's just a byproduct of actually

charging it yeah yeah absolutely and uh i think on the on a different youtube channel i talked about

using an arc welded or try to resuscitate an old battery doesn't sound like a good idea to me

no um i will say this i have noticed the onset of more agm batteries absorbent glass material

constructed batteries that don't have liquid electrolyte in them um they're a pretty common

thing now and they came out well over 20 years ago now in the first probably early 2000s um

and well you don't want to use an arc welder i will say that um when an agm battery gets deeply

discharged it's commonly known among the industry at this point that they're a little resistant to

wanting to take a charge at all um and can be a little bit of a conundrum to get going sometimes

and sometimes you might need to do something like creative uh to to get it going such as a higher rate

charge for a few split seconds um or connecting a jump pack in parallel with it while the charger is

connected in order to convince most of these automated chargers with program safety circuit

checks that there's actually a load at the other end to charge because if not the batteries internal

resistance can really appear like there's nothing there and your automated chargers might not start

charging it you know i talked about the neighbor the the helpful neighbor with the uh jumper cables

we're seeing jump packs everywhere now i swear they're all made by the same

company in china and they just have different names on them um but there there are other

ones i i suppose they are made differently like everything can be made differently um somebody

who who listens to the radio program as a podcast who will probably be listening tomorrow at the gym

because he says he listens to the program while he's at the gym he said i bought a

auto x something a rather jump starter air compressor combo it was a hundred bucks it claims to have

3,500 amps wow um that's a lot of amps i don't know what i don't know what you do with 3,500 amps but uh

uh and who knows who knows but what what's uh have have we changed our opinion on these jump

packs now um well it depends on which jump packs i guess we're talking about i don't have a visual

representation of that one right now yeah um the compact the compact lithium ion one so let's go

all right so the comp so all right so we're talking about the lithium ion one so what we know about

those is they can pack an awful lot of power into an extremely small case and it's really amazing

and i was admittedly very skeptical probably 10 years ago plus when i saw the first one uh and

said there's no way this is going to start this f 350 truck out here in the yard it's five degrees

outside there's no way it's going to do it and it did it it absolutely did it uh and it delivered

the current that was necessary and and they're pretty amazing for that and then you can plug in

lots of different accessories to them you can add little flashlights to them with usb ports or

compressors if you want um and and the lithium ion technology is or lithium polymer technology is

really really impressive from a power delivery standpoint um there are a couple of challenges

that are being um seen throughout the industry about the practical uses of them and not damaging

things that cause us to kind of not embrace them uh in the industry from a commercial standpoint

at least in the triple a fleet land um and that's for one of the things that one of those packs

has to have by design is very very very short cables because dc voltage drop can't occur the

way they're generating power and be effective so it can't have a 10 foot long set of cables like

your old jump cable might have been um and and they're usually very thin and because of that

they don't allow us to connect to the manufacturer specified points of connection for jump starting

on many cars um one to come to mind immediately without picking on any brands um but our toyota

and lexus particularly modern ones uh they specify that one connection gets made at a junction box

near the master cylinder and then the ground connection must be made over by the on the body

by the passenger's front headlight that requires about a 40 inch cable span and none of the lithium

ion packs that i know of or that anyone's shown me have cables that come anywhere near being able

to reach those places and if we don't connect there um due to current surges when a car is jump

starter from a discharge battery we are seeing from the lexus engineering team and toyota folks

documented ecm damages to the tune of three four five six thousand dollars when it happens and someone

tries to use that so we avoid those from a commercial standpoint they're cool as a backup um

but a lot of cars don't even have a battery located under the hood so they don't even really

reach they will the cables will reach across the typical battery terminals but most manufacturers

for 25 or 30 years have been avoiding telling any consumers to connect directly to the negative

terminal anyway when jumping that car they want you connecting away from it keep sparks away from

that battery so they're not super because of the because of the hinderberg because of the hindenberg

which no one knows what we're talking about except us um and so yeah we don't really from a commercial

standpoint we stick typically with the traditional lead acid or agm mini battery packed all larger

ones which can allow zero gauge cables um and can deliver current over a longer span of cable

sets so we can still have that six seven-footed cable length and get to where we need to for

the manufacturer specified locations yeah it's amazing how much like you said power is packed in

with small container if you will i know i had somebody working at my house and he had a beat

up van and it didn't start and i said oh let me go and he goes no no and he had he had a set of

cables that he made up that he jammed into his default battery yep and started his car

i i have seen that done actually yeah and the idea that you can first off probably starting

with a 20 volt battery wasn't probably the best idea but i don't think this van really minded that

much it just started yeah so um before we let you go i got an email from somebody who has a

i'm making it up 20 2018 this Nissan morano a little confused about it's going to need a new

battery it is the original so a nine-year-old battery i guess or something somewhere around that

yep and uh and he said where should i go for a battery and and i always feel a little uncomfortable

saying well come to triple a because i feel self-serving but on the other hand i looked it up and

the factory battery was a 550 cold cranking at battery our replacement battery was a 650

cold cranking at battery and installed in your driveway as a triple a member for like 220 bucks

uh yeah somewhere i think all those numbers are pretty much pretty close to accurate i'm not looking

at all the specifics right now but yeah it's very common for us to be able to deliver a battery we

only only buy the premium level batteries so we'll often bring a battery to you that's more

powerful capable than the actual minimum spec that was required of your car and it's a pretty

convenient service and it's certainly more than price competitive um then when you're traveling to

other ports go to buy a similar battery and then have to do all that work installing the result

and then have to bring the old one back and all of that or else the old one sits in your house

till you get tired of seeing it and then find some place we'll take it away we'll we'll take it away

and we'll recycle it right through our distribution program um so it doesn't sit around creating any

environmental hazardous waste uh and again you don't have to really leave your couch yeah no it's uh

it's a system it's a system it works out good we we put a lot of batteries and a lot of people's cars

and um it's it's it's easy for the customer who's and the member that look my car my car won't start

to sit in the driveway let's send somebody out with batteries and get the car going we're almost

we're almost door dash um if you think about it you have the triple a mobile app you if you

if you're a triple a member and don't have it um you can download it easily and i hope you would

um and and then at that point you can literally put a call in for battery service and just like

you'd door dash yourself your favorite pizzeria will be there in the half an hour or so usually

and uh we'll have the battery for your car and be able to change it for you and again you won't

have to do anything except come to the door like you would to get your door dash well i've i've um

i have used our app but i've never used door dash so me neither do i actually um but but all the

kids tell me it's the rage there you go there you go jay i want to thank you for taking a little

time out of your sunday morning and joining us on the radio program if people want more information

about the battery program like you said download the app go to the triple a dot com website uh look

for battery service and you can real simply put in your vehicle year make mile a year make and model

and you'll get a quote on how much your battery costs and a little bit of variation because it

can be it can be like you pointed out an a gm battery it can be a conventional lead acid battery

somewhere in between but we have batteries for would you say 90 percent of most of the cars out there

i would be so bold as to say 95 percent bold it is then we will go with 95 percent jay thanks

thanks for having me on sunday and uh fly eagles fly at four o'clock and um it's open for more playoff

there you go all right cj we need to take a break pay some bills in spite of what jay talked about

for football uh we'll pay some bills my name is john paul this is the car doctor program

you're listening on 95 9w atd we'll be right back even car geeks and do-it-yourselfers rely on triple

a to give them extra peace of mind on the road triple a offers 24 7 roadside assistance whether

you're in your own vehicle in a friend's car or even a rental combine that with great rates of

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and off the road get a special membership offer today at a a a dot com slash join that's a a a

dot com slash join hey there folks it's quinkelly reminding you to tune in sunday night add five

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959 w atd make an appointment sunday morning at 11 for john paul the car doctor on 959

w atd now back to the car doctor and welcome back to the car doctor i want to thank jay carrera

for calling in and uh taking a little time out of his sunday and um if you want to call in our phone

number 781-837-4900 781-837-4900 uh somebody wrote to me and said

they have a 2012 Toyota Camry with foggy headlights um and they

went with uh the turtle wax package which includes some abrasive pads

and um they said they cleaned up the headlights uh for what they say this kit cost under 20 dollars

it took about 15 minutes of work and they said they look really really good but unfortunately

a few months later they were back to being foggy looking again so they cleaned them up again

and then they purchased something called maguire's clear headlight coating and that cost them 13

dollars and apparently it's a ceramic coating that supposedly prevents refogging for up to a year

person says it's been six months and the headlights still look nearly new with no evidence of refogging

so if you decide to try to clean up your headlights go buy this stuff this maguire's

clear headlight coating i guess it's supposed to work pretty well and it's a ceramic coating which

everything seems to be ceramic these days whenever i wash my car um i tend to

hit the headlights with a little bit of wax at the same time to try to prevent them from discoloring

i think that helps the headlights become discolored because of um UV rays tend to take off that

outer protective layer of the plastic that covers the headlights so i tend to tend to always hit it

with a little bit of wax i've been a little bit lazy uh in my washing and waxing uh and i tend to use

depending on weather i i and i'll be honest i hate washing my car just don't like i just

don't enjoy it some people enjoy it i don't enjoy it um but i tend to if the weather is

a cool day rather than drag out the hose and all that i use a waterless car wash product

which i happen to use the maguire's product i think it works really well i've tried

the mother's product and the turtle wax product didn't really like them as much and

i'm pretty sure maguire's bought mothers at one point um they look the same they're the same color

just doesn't seem to work as good uh griot i think is the other one that seems to work pretty well

maguire's i can find it the local walmart so it makes it easy um you do use a fair amount of

microfiber cloths because you spray it on wipe it off and then hit it with the microfiber cloth

the microfiber cloth uh the way these waterless products work is they tend to um

emulsify maybe the dirt so they tend to raise the dirt off so you're not scratching

you're not scratching the paint with the dirt that's on it now if you just went off-roading

and there's mud all over your car you know wash it first uh but if you're just dealing with

kind of week to week dust and dirt i found the waterless car wash products work pretty well um

and you like i said you do use a fair amount of microfiber cloths because you don't want to use a

dirty microfiber cloth over again so i tend to use the microfiber cloths like rags afterwards i

stick them in a little jar and there they are if i'm doing something messy like i did this week

i used a bunch of them so it was handy to it was handy to have them um

so i'm i've become over the past couple years a fan of bling sauce products

for uh quick detailing kind of thing uh they make uh they make some products that

spray on wipe off car looks shiny afterwards i like their products a lot they have come up with

wheel cleaner tire cleaner interior cleaner now uh they have last time we talked to the folks

from bling they said they were coming out with a their own brand of microfiber towels because they

say the same thing use microfiber towels um but i hit the headlights with the blink sauce

which is supposedly some sort of ceramic stuff i don't even know what it is but it's probably

it's probably the word ceramic in there i just happen to like their products i think they do

really well um so you know if you're going to try something nice and easy that's one way

if you want to try something nice and easy like call us seven eight one eight three seven

forty nine hundred and before we get to tom and pembruck i just want to mention window cleaning

again um talk a lot about trying to keep your windows clean and i hate as i'm getting

as jay said to me much older than him um i like to have really clean windows in my car and i'm

i've been a fan of sprayway cleaner uh i think it does a good job the aerosol i don't like this spray

bottle kind i like the aerosol the foamy stuff um i use paper towels go over it with a microfiber i

clean microfiber cloth but lately i found something called scott glass wipes and there it's a it's

basically a paper towel it's not it doesn't have any chemicals in it and i found that once the windshield

looks fairly clean and it's dry these are like cleaning your car with old newspaper and old

newspaper used to be great to clean your car with but now the newspaper is all recycled and people

don't buy the paper anymore so um but this blue paper towel once the windshield looks clean go over

it and it gets that little bit of film off the windshield afterwards it tends to make the windshield

look kind of foggy looking at night it does a really good job so um microfiber cloths sprayway

cleaner scott blue paper towels seems to do a nice job i get people call me all the time about

windshields and how to keep it clean that seems to be the combination of work the best also a

little is best don't be heavy with the windshield with the window cleaner a little bit is best you

don't need a lot of it because it does cause a film let's talk to uh tom and pemberton tom

tom tom hello there we go hey how are you john good how are you all right i'm just getting back

to your battery topic there um have you ever heard of the the wall mod merry go round with the batteries

um no tell me people actually buy them and you know they have a three year warranty

uh it's not even prorated or anything people will buy them and actually use them for 35 months and

then return them for a brand new battery um and they don't they don't test them i guess not i mean

you know it's a store that yeah i'm talking about one without an automotive section oh okay all right

yeah i mean i don't know i wouldn't do it but i know people that do well well i mean for as

as an example our triple a batteries have a three year warranty and it's fully transferable so if

you put it in your car and you sold your car to me and the triple a guy came out and said oh that's

a triple a battery and you said and i said well i didn't buy it they're like that's okay we still

warranty it if it's under three years old we put a new one in it's not prorated we did away with we

found a better way probably walmart the same way that the three year non prorated warranty

causes far less confusion than somebody's got a 38 month old battery and it's prorated and all

of a sudden they look at it and go well that costs almost as much as a new battery did so we went with

the three year you know it's guaranteed 100 for three years but we tested to make sure that

they're good or bad and i'm sure there's people out there that we're probably the same people that

up until last year would go would would wait two days after getting when their inspection

sticker expired so they could get an extra month out of it get an extra month out of the state so

instead of their sticker being 12 months now it's 13 months if you do that for 12 years in a row

you got a whole year for free you know or um you know and i'm sure there's people out there that go

up you know i you know the the person behind the counter is not going to know anything if i say hey

my car didn't start uh my walmart battery's dead uh it's still under warranty can i get a new one

i'm sure there's probably people out there that do that just to try to squeak another you know

another few years out of it i suppose yeah yeah i'm guilty of the sticker thing i used to do that

way way back when but now you can't and you can't now because what happens if you come in three months

late it still goes back to the original date of the sticker which um used to used to kind of kill me for

the car that we keep in massachusetts um the sticker was we bought that car in february it

had a february sticker on it and if we and if we came to florida for a few months we came back home

the sticker was always expired and i'm like well you know we race up to the sticker place get a

sticker on the car and i actually talked to the registry once and i said you know i'm i'm not here

the car's off the road essentially what can i do when they said well it's an easy fix just go get

a sticker again the month you're home and then all of a sudden it'll be that date and i'm like

yeah but that cost me an extra 35 dollars why should i have to do that they said well that's

the way it works that's the way it works the insurance company is actually notified now if you

don't do it right when you're supposed to so the insurance companies the insurance companies are

notified and also your registration renewal becomes in peril if you absolutely forgot to

get your car inspected you'll get a notification that they're holding your registration until

they see an until they see a inspection done on your vehicle wow that's crazy another thing on

the battery um you know the easy pass transponders yep so those ever need battery replacement

how do they work you know i have you know that's a it has to have something in it right

yeah i would think so it's such a distant you know that 30 40 i don't know 50 feet away and and

depending where you go you could be going through the the easy pass thing at 65 miles an hour

yeah yeah i'm not you know so you know you've made you've made me curious now i want to know

because i mean i have one you know it sits in my glove compartment most of the time

um yeah because i don't use it very often and then i see the one like my i have a neighbor who

has the one that looks like a uh a bar that mounts on top of his license plate a lot of people have

those um yep you know it's it's going to have something in it i would think

yeah yeah i have to chat gtp it i guess i might do that during the next break

yeah okay sounds good all right thanks i'm yep thank you all right take care if you want to

join us and maybe you know the answer about your easy pass transponder whether it has

a battery in it or not i'm going to look that up why don't we take another break my name is

john paul this is a car doc program if you would like to join us 7818374900 is the number 7818374900

phone lines are open jump on give us a call talk about whatever on your mind about your car maybe

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you'll see the car doc program on 95 9w atd we'll be right back even car geeks and do what

yourselfers rely on triple a to give them extra peace of mind on the road triple a offers 24 7

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that with great rates of insurance hotel gas and buying savings and discounts on 8700 brands and

you're covered on and off the road get a special membership offer today at aaa.com slash join

that's aaa.com slash join it's john shea here from almost famous radio introducing you

to independent bands and musicians from across new england brought to you each week by tiny and

sun's glass coming up this tuesday night another full show and store for you tons of new music

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honored with a lifetime achievement award from the national highway traffic safety administration

he's john paul the car doctor on 95 9w atd and welcome back to the car doctor program as um

i was suggested to do go to chat gbt and see what see what it knows and it says if you're curious

about toll transponders yes most toll transponders do use a battery but there are a couple of

important exceptions battery power transponders which are the most common example easy pass

sun pass pro which is the older hide case or fast track and texas tag contain a small lithium battery

the battery is not replaceable the typical lifespan of the battery is between five and

ten years the battery powers the radio signal so it can be read at highway speeds when the

battery dies the transponder still looks fine but stops registering reliably i don't know how you

would know other than you'd probably get a plate ticket thing in the mail um and it probably only

it's probably such low voltage it only turns on in the neighborhood so it's not on while it's

sitting in the car it's on when it approaches the tolls transponder i would guess um signs the

battery is uh failing miss tolls license plate reading billing instead like i said account warnings

or low battery message um i guess maybe you go on your easy pass account then there's some battery

free transponders um the newer sun pass mini which is the florida ishwan i guess

which is a very thin sticker that's applied to the windshield uh it has a shorter read range but

it's extremely reliable no expiration um those are getting increasingly popular it says here

because there's no battery failure and long service life and then there's uh you know the other

ones that the camera reads the plate and then you get the higher price ticket in the mail

or not ticket higher price um bill in the mail uh let's talk to mike from a revere revere michael

good morning god doctor mike good morning view this morning how's things in revere beach this morning

a little cool yeah on the beach yeah well that's okay it's okay okay i and you just about

answered i was the information that i was gonna present to you about the transponder okay they

they do need a battery and periodically after so many years the um mass port will send you a new one

oh all right okay the the bar type is the one that um it adheres to the windshield with this

like a velcro kind of yeah yeah what they send me in addition to that where i might add

is that if you ship your car to florida as i do periodically and with them once you take it off

the windshield wrap it up in tinfoil then put it in the glovebox because what has happened in

prior vacations i got charged for the tolls all the way to florida i had to pay them too

yeah i've heard of that i've heard of that happening on the transport trucks you know people people

leave them in there and and of course the the the toll reader doesn't know any better it just sees

the thing go by and and bingsha i do do you get charged for the truck or do you get charged for

your car get charged for your car oh that's good at least you don't get charged for an 18 wheeler

but it adds up to almost 50 bucks oh yeah i bet yeah i think a judge watching the bridge alone

my mistake is like 13 14 dollars it might be higher now yeah probably yeah yeah yeah no it's uh

that's a good point though you're right wrap it up in uh wrap it up in a couple layers of tinfoil

you know just stick it as far away from anything as you can or uh or put it in your or put it in

the truck i thought i intended to do this trip yeah yeah um yeah now i i've only shipped a car once

and i had what i would consider pretty good luck with it um you know it showed up it showed up

they picked it up on the day they were supposed to pick it up it showed up a few days

early which was a little inconvenient because somebody had to go pick it up for me uh how

how's been how has your experience been shipping vehicles

yeah uh dr be honest with you they're cowboys yeah i've been doing this for 20 years it deferred

when the initial uh price was 500 dollars it goes highest i've paid as much as 1200 one way

yep uh i'm currently booked for the end of the month and i put a pretty good rate at 900

all right and now what the problem is that i've been trying to do some recent research

the trucks aren't owned by the companies that you're doing business with right owned by a broker

or individual right and these cowboys come ago as they please they got no schedule they can tell you

that three or four we i'm pretty weak two three week delays this truck broke down they got a flat

there's a traffic and an accident the road was closed the snow didn't have enough care yeah yeah

yeah the lady action you still get the car cost you the same money and whatnot yeah no and i've

heard similar to that like they'll deal because they the broker puts it out to bid so they get

they get you know you know uh you know jesse's jesse's auto transport and he goes well i'll do that

for 400 dollars and then somebody's back yeah yeah second thing yeah well yeah big money you're

putting a seven eight cars on there at 900 a pop yeah and and but some of these some of these

companies are probably saying oh yeah i can do it but they're waiting they're hoping to get

their their trailer full because if the trailers only have full they're not making money that's

right that's right they say they're ruled by uh the truckers you know they have to

only drive so many hours but i think they bend the rules all around but you can't how are you

gonna check them gonna change them around yeah i mean other than other than when they go through

a weigh station they gotta pull you know they gotta pull their their books out and show that they

you know they were sleeping by the side of the road what yeah one last question before you go mic

what part of florida i go to florida deal all right all right one question to you i intend

leaving the car one of my automobiles in a garage unfortunately i don't have any electricity

therefore i don't have any way to keep the battery intact what i have been doing in the past and it

seems to have worked would be to disconnect the negative cable until i come back for three

two or three months and it seems to work dark i don't know not perfect the battery or whatever

yep no the only the only the only thing that happens when you disconnect the battery you know

you you gotta you know reset your radio when you clock and all that and sometimes dependent on the

car when you disconnect the battery it might the car might get stupid for a couple of starts it might

start and stall start and stall or then it will restart but you put it here and it will stall

it just needs to relearn but usually how it takes is two or three restarts and it's fine

okay but that if if i didn't if um i leave a car outside but i have it you know it's near

an outlet and i have it plugged in and you know it's on a battery tender thing and it's outside

which i hate doing but it's the only choice i have but i if i didn't do that i would do

exactly what you do disconnect the negative battery and you know and hook it back up when

you get back home and the battery is uh not uh not her triple a it's a durable last auto zone

which worked out quite well yeah um doing that for a number of years and seem to work you know

yeah no no i mean i mean at the end at the end of the day there's only there's only four or five

battery manufacturers is you know interstate which doesn't even make batteries interstate

interstate's really a marketing company they their batteries are mostly clarios which used to be the

you know people knew them when they were you know diehards and stuff like that and then there was

east penn and um uh excite there's not that many battery companies but uh you know you

my only advice with people is buy the best battery you can afford you know if you have a

if you have a good better best then you can afford to buy the best one by that one because

that's the one you're going to have the least amount of problems with and one plug for you

thank you so much for the tire inflator uh by next next next business something next

go it worked out well the only thing is you don't leave them in the trunk because they won't work

on the cold yeah you gotta you gotta look out for i i did that with a uh i did that with a cordless

drill i left it in the trunk because i was doing some work over at someone's house and it was cold

out and i went to go use it and the battery was completely dead and i'm like i can't do that anymore

and it wouldn't even and the battery wouldn't even take a charge it had to be it had to be warmed up

yeah yeah yeah yeah a little bit all right thanks mikey all right all right take care bye bye

and some of the other some of the other questions that came in this week uh because we don't really

i don't think we really have enough time for um another call to come in but somebody came in and

somebody said uh i have a 2020 Subaru Forester with 36 000 miles i brought it to the dealer for

synthetic oil change entire rotation based on the the mileage they strongly recommended front

and rear differential service i don't see this service is recommended by Subaru in the maintenance

guide what do you think i put about 6 000 miles a year on the car well first off

what was this guy's name first off jeffrey thanks for reading the owners manual so many people don't

and be honest that's where i get a lot of my information somebody asked me a question about

something i'll go to the owners manual now it's one of those things that goes into

you can't hurt to do it but is it necessary according to Subaru and this is not the owner's

manual i'm maybe it is but this is when i looked it up in all data um it said it said replace the

front and rear differential fluid um every 15 000 miles or 15 months whichever occurs first if

you repeatedly tow a trailer now if you and i don't know what repeatedly tow a trailer means

you know if you have a utility trailer kayak trailer a small boat trailer and you tow it

four or five times a year probably not repeatedly you know if you tow a portable hot dog stand around

every day yeah that's yeah that's repeatedly um and then change the differential fluid

what i think probably happens though and this is just my opinion is the dealer just said yeah

let's change let's recommend change the fluid if they checked it and saw contamination yeah change

it but did they actually check it i'm willing to bet the answer is no well that music means we

need to step aside i want to thank jay carrera from calling for calling in on his day off on sunday

and i want to thank jesse for doing a great job on the board like he always does and until next week

make sure you wear your seatbelt drive safely be good to your car and if you do see an emergency

vehicle by the side of the road slow down or move over it saves lives talk to you all next week bye bye

Talking batteries with AAA's Jason Carrara. Car batteries and the Hindenburg-related?

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