Talking batteries with AAA's Jason Carrara. Car batteries and the Hindenburg-related?
The Car Doctor Podcast
Talking batteries with AAA's Jason Carrara. Car batteries and the Hindenburg-related?
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Car
Porsche 959
The Porsche 959 is a very special sports car made by Porsche that was known for being super fast and having cool features like four-wheel drive. It was made a long time ago but is still famous today because it was so advanced for its time and is hard to find.
Term
fuel pump
The fuel pump is like a small motor that pushes gas from the tank to the engine. If it stops working, the car won't start because the engine isn't getting any fuel.
Term
transmission
The transmission is like the car's gear system. It helps the car speed up or slow down by changing gears, similar to how a bicycle works when you shift gears to make pedaling easier or harder.
Term
key fob battery
The key fob battery is what makes your car remote work. If it dies, you might not be able to unlock or start your car, just like a dead battery in a remote control.
Term
12 volt battery
A 12 volt battery is what powers your car's electrical systems and starts the engine. It's been used in cars for many decades, starting around the late 1950s.
Car
Volvo
Volvo is a car brand from Sweden that is known for making safe and reliable vehicles. Some of their cars have extra batteries for better performance.
Car
Jeep
Jeep is a car brand famous for making tough vehicles that can go off-road. Some of their models have special features like extra batteries.
Car
Tesla Cybertruck
The Tesla Cybertruck is a new electric truck made by Tesla. It looks very different from regular trucks and is designed to be tough and efficient.
Term
start-stop system
The start-stop system helps save fuel by turning off the engine when you're stopped, like at a red light, and then starts it again when you press the gas pedal. It's designed to use less gas and produce fewer emissions.
Car
GMC Terrain
The GMC Terrain is a small SUV that is comfortable for driving and has a lot of space inside for passengers and cargo. It's designed to be practical and efficient for everyday use.
Car
Jeep Cherokee
The Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk is a special version of the Jeep Cherokee that is built for off-road driving. It has features that help it handle rough terrain better than regular models.
Term
backup camera
A backup camera is a small camera on the back of a car that shows what’s behind you when you are backing up. It helps drivers see obstacles they might not notice otherwise.
Term
battery life
Battery life is how long a car battery can work before it stops being useful. In colder places, batteries usually last about five years, but in hot places, they can wear out much faster, sometimes in just one or two years.
Part
car battery
A car battery is what starts your car and provides power to the electrical systems when the engine isn't running. It's important for keeping your car running smoothly.
Term
charging system
The charging system keeps your car's battery charged while you drive. It makes sure that all the electronics in your car have the power they need.
Term
state of charge
State of charge tells you how much power your car's battery has left. It's like checking how full your phone battery is.
Term
battery tender
A battery tender is a device that helps keep your car's battery charged when you're not using the car often. It prevents the battery from dying by providing a small amount of power.
Term
jump start
A jump start is when you use another car's battery or a special device to help start your car if the battery is dead.
Term
alternator
The alternator is a part of the car that makes electricity when the engine is on. It helps keep the battery charged and powers things like lights and radio.
Term
fuel injection
Fuel injection is how cars get fuel into their engines. It's a more modern way than older systems, making cars run better and use fuel more efficiently.
Term
lead-acid battery
A lead-acid battery is a common type of battery that uses lead and acid to store energy. It's often found in cars to help start the engine and power electrical systems.
Term
AGM battery
An AGM battery is a special kind of car battery that doesn't spill liquid. It uses glass mats to hold the battery fluid, which makes it safer and often better for performance.
Term
lithium-ion battery
A lithium-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery that is lightweight and can store a lot of energy. It's commonly used in many electronic devices and is what makes modern jump starters so compact and powerful.
Term
F-350
The F-350 is a big truck made by Ford that can carry and tow a lot of weight. It's often used for heavy work, like construction or towing trailers.
Brand
Lexus
Lexus is a luxury car brand that is part of Toyota, offering high-end vehicles with more features and comfort.
Car
Chevrolet Volt
The Chevrolet Volt is a car that can run on electricity and also uses gas, which means you can drive it without using a lot of fuel. It was made to help people save money on gas and be better for the environment, making it a popular choice for those who want to be eco-friendly.
Car
Nissan Murano
The Nissan Murano is a type of SUV that is spacious and comfortable, making it great for families. The 2018 version has a strong engine and many safety features.
Car
Toyota Camry
The 2012 Toyota Camry is a popular car that many people use for daily driving. It's known for being dependable and having a comfortable ride.
Car
Subaru Forester
The Subaru Forester is a type of SUV that is good for driving in various weather conditions. It's known for being reliable and spacious, making it a great choice for families or outdoor activities.
LIVE
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
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 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
for the south shore's first voice in sports talk radio the sports exchange unmatched coverage of
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remember mark your calendar folks and we'll see you sunday night at five for the sports exchange on
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
some kind of car problem maybe you're thinking about buying a new car give us a call 7818374900
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
roadside assistance whether you're in your own vehicle a friend's car or even a rental combine
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
and upcoming show dates to pass along and i'll be joined on the w atd tiny stage by singer
songwriter delilah breu that's this tuesday night eight till 1095 9w atd and 95 9w atd.com
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
About this episode
A deep dive into car batteries with AAA's Jason Carrara reveals the intricacies of battery maintenance and longevity. The discussion covers the average lifespan of batteries, the importance of regular use, and tips for maximizing battery life. Listeners learn about the various types of batteries in modern vehicles, including key fob batteries and the challenges of hybrid systems. The episode also touches on jump-starting techniques, the evolution of jump packs, and the significance of proper battery care, making it a valuable resource for anyone looking to understand their vehicle's power source better.
Original notes
In this episode Jay Carrara, the senior manager of automotive training for AAA Northeast talks about batteries. Why they die, how long they can last when properly maintained and how car's electronics have changed.
The Car Doctor Podcast
John Paul
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58:51