last thursday i had an important medical appointment. the doc was going to give me the once over and declare me fit for duty. i brushed my teeth, combed my hair and headed out to the mighty sonata. i pressed the key and nothing happened. i assumed the battery in the fob was dead and unlocked the door the old fashioned way, with a key. when i put the key in the ignition nothing happened, my feckin battery was dead!
i ran back into the house and quickly called the doctor. our free medical doesn't cover missed appointments and this was with a brain surgeon, king of the jungle and charges accordingly. i told him my dilema and after a little chat he said i was fit for duty and the phone consultation would suffice. no charge for a missed appointment.
now for the car. i called around and was told that the battery had to be ordered but they could probably get it for me in the afternoon. i waited for the lovely mrs myshkin to come home and give me jump start. she came home and when i opened her hood there was no feckin battery. those feckin germans had hid the battery somewhere in the rear of the car. have i ever mentioned how much i dislike bmw's, particularly X5's? upon reading the owner's manual i learned that there's jump start terminal under the hood. i found it and hooked up the cables. electricity went to the mighty sonata but not enough to start it. i called service department and they suggested finding the battery and jump starting from there. the lovely mrs myshkin wouldn't let me take her car apart so i threw the cables back into my trunk and went looking for neighbor to give a jump start. an east indian contractor lives to my east. i knock on the door and some woman answers and as luck would have it she can't speak english but manages to tell me that he's not home. i headed to the other neighbor and find some construction worker who happens to be doing some work for him. he asks if i have cables, i say yes and he agrees to meet me at my garage. when he pulls up and i go to get my cables from the trunk the feckin thing won't open because the electronic lock needs electricity. the lever inside the car won't work either. i'm fucked! i ran into the house and called the dealer, i was told there might be a keyed lock under the license plate so i removed the license plate and there is no feckin lock. the construction worker gets pissed and leaves.
a few minutes later and light went off in my head. i can pull the back seat down and crawl into the trunk and use the emergency lever. it worked! the trunk was open and i had the jumper cables but the construction worker had left. i'm fucked again. the lovely mrs myshkin volunteered to go find another neighbor for help. a lovely woman with a honda civic pulled up was ready to give me jump. i hooked up the cables and son of a bitch it wouldn't start. there was electricity but not enough to start the now not so mighty sonata. she was about to leave when she mentioned that she had a set of jumper cables so we decided to try her cables. son of a bitch, it worked! the mighty sonata sprang to life!
by now it was dark but i decided to drive to the shop without my headlights turned on just in case they would drain some valuable electricity. i made it to the shop without getting a ticket and had a gold diehard battery installed. all was well with the world.
i had used the old jumper cables countless times on my dad's honda and my old corolla as well as other small cars but the sonata needed more electricity than the old cheap cables could conduct.
so here's my xmas message: if you have chintzy jumper cables, toss them out and pick up some decent ones, at least 6 gauge.
has anyone heard john hiatt's new album? it's pretty good.
i love you sons of bitches.
31 comments:
An X5? Oi Vei!
Most excellent advice on the jumper cables. I shall heed it.
(Glad your brain is good to go.)
thims - the X5 depreciated more in the past year than i paid for my 2009 sonata. i kinda regret not buying a 370Z but i need a 4 door sedan to drive my parents around.
bob - i'm ashamed to say that i haven't ran out and bought new cables yet, maybe tomorrow.
Good of the doctor to give you a telephone medical. Is there a reason why he didn't tell you to take a cab?
gb - we don't yet have cabs capable of traveling at light speed. by the time a cab arrived to pick me up and drive to the medical building my appointment would have long since passed.
Good grief! Murphy's law was in high gear that day. Good thing he didn't trip you up on the driving without lights.
I'm thinking now I'm glad that I don't have electric locks and windows and that my little clown car is easily pushed started in that situation.
I didn't figure you had anything to do with the wife owning a BMW, they're just ego trips and expensive to fix.
4 Gauge, yup, 4 gauge.
Actually, the cheap cables should have done it using the BMW but because the battery is in the back and the jumping posts are in the front you are dealing with a lot of cable and loss.
So you have to hook the cables up and then run the BMW at about 1500 RPM for about 15 minutes to get enough charge in your battery to start the car. That usually works anyway.
our free medical doesn't cover missed appointments ...So what happen up there is you are late or miss an medical appointments. Recently one of my client appointment who has medical want to charge her $25.
Well that could be post for anther day.
We don't have new rigs either. both of have Toyota. I usual drive the Turcel great mileage and easy up-keep can't complain.
I had a car one time that didn't use a key to open the trunk but it had latch to open the trunk still the battery could be dead as door nail.
Coffee is on
Dora reminds me of my oldest sister, sweet but can be crusty, but her grammar and spelling really sucks, to the point that it's hard to overlook at times.
So I looked up a BMW X5, there's a nice planet killer, thanks for doing your part.
silly - i often think about buying an old vw bug for simplicity's sake. i just might do it one of these days.
bill - 4 guage, will 6 gauge do the trick?
peppy - regular doctors usually charge $40 for a missed 15 minute appointment but the brain guy books 45 minute appointments so it would probably be at least $200.
Six gauge will squeak by most times and if they don't work just keep them hooked up for ten to fifteen minutes to charge the battery up some. And always run the host car at a high idle to get its alternator working good enough to put out some max output. They don't put out much at idle rpm's.
A host car may have a marginal battery in it also, so in that case you have to use it as a battery charger and that means being patient and letting it charge for 15 minutes.
Of course when I'm home I have an ass kicking commercial battery charger with a 200 amp boost. The other day I put a set of 4 gauge jumper cables in the chest in the truck.
But what do you do in a real pinch? Back in the old days when cars didn't have so much plastic on them we would at times get bumper to bumper to ground them, and then use any piece of wire we could get our hands on to go from positive to positive post on the batteries.
These day's you'll have to rip off an extension cord from someone and cut two six foot lengths out of it to come up with two double strands of 14 gauge wire to mickymouse up some jumpers.
It'll take 15 minutes charge time but the other car will usually start and you can make your get a way.
It pays off being able to think like an outlaw. :-)
Love you too BP. Glad you are fit for duty, and that the car is as well. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Buy the bug, Billy!
If you can't find an old one cheap, see about a Chevy S10: Best damn car I ever owned turns out to be a truck...Go figure!
bill - if i was younger i'd ask to be your apprentice.
mr shife - fit as a fiddle and happy as a clam, that's me.
gait - an old bug would be a cool summer toy.
I have to agree... get a fun summer V-Dub! Merry Christmas billy! I hope you and baby Jesus have lots and lots of candy! =:]
I wouldn't mind having a old bug, never had one but used to work on them, pretty easy to work on.
Or a Toyota Tercel from the 80's, damn good little cars.
I thought the first Ford Festiva's were neat little cars but I guess they didn't go over so well.
I'll give BMW and Mercedes one thing. Any I've driven had nice tight bodies and gave a world class ride and a good driver can really horse them around.
But if I picked up an old one I would jerk the engine out of it and put a 350 Chevy engine in it so I could understand and work on the son of a bitch and keep it running cheap.
silly - i hate to admit this but the baby jesus will be sitting this one out. he's snug as a bug in a rug in his box.
bill - i like the stereo in my sonata better than the system in the X5 and that's the most important feature in a car for me. when looking for a car my motto is, big stereo, little engine.
Well, if it would make you happy I guess I could put a 2.3 liter Pinto engine in my old BMW.
I'm not into power and 70 MPH anymore myself.
Ever drive a T Bird with a four banger in it? They'd put out the power of a V8, cuz they were turbo charged.
what an adventure..glad you got charged up..
bill - i'd like an old t-bird with port holes.
yellowdog - yup, i got more electricity than brains right now.
Port window? 56 I guess. They looked cool but where not that cool to drive. And if the tranny went out you had to pull the motor out with the tranny attached to it cuz there wasn't enough room under there to just take it out.
I love a good Christmas story.
secret agent woman said... I love a good Christmas story.
“What’s that?” “What?” “Over there, looks like a monkeymobile.” “We’d better check it out.” “Holy shit, there’s five dead monkeys in it, looks like they froze to death.” “Lets check the trunk.” “Hot damn, it’s full of christmas presents, put them in the truck, then we’ll go to where we can call some authorities and give them the GPS coordinates.
Ah, the human race….
“Hey, what are you doing?” “I want to see her tits.” “You fucking idiot, she’s frozen, leave her alone.”
“Fuck, now we’re stuck.” “Well, if we can’t get unstuck we can still have a christmas dinner.” “How so?” “There’s rice in the truck and lots of monkey meat in that car.” “Fuck that, get the come a long, we’ll use that car as an anchor.”
Sing along now…… Have yourselves a morbid little christmas. Have yourselves a morbid little christmas, and a happy new year…. hehehehe
Hey Billy,
"Deck Us All With Boston Charlie," or something.
Hope 2012 keeps your batteries charged.
Cheers!
i picked up some 4 gauge cables, anyone need a jump start??
As a former Repo Man I know (from experience) to get hefty jumper cables. I have a set in my truck to this very day. I also learned to roll-start a car with a stick transmission... which I have done several times.
My ex was in a shopping center parking lot and couldn't start her car. She got a guy in the parking lot to try and jump it but it still wouldn't start. She ended up calling AAA road service. The tow truck driver got in the car, shifted the gear from (D)rive into (P)ark and the car started right up.
You think that is dumb, there is a recording of a frantic woman to 911 who was "trapped" in her car because the electric door locks would not work; complaining that it was hot and she was not feeling well. The 911 operator convinced the woman to simply manually lift up the little lock knob on the door!! Found it!
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