Not long ago the wife called me while at work and said that the battery had gone dead in the Buick Rendezvous. I told her that I would pick on up on the way home from work and replace it there in the parking lot. I stopped at Advance Auto and picked up a battery, then stopped at home and gathered what I thought was enough tools and headed for the parking lot. Two and half hours later, I was at least able to start the car, but many of the parts were still not replaced. I ended up breaking a large fuze box just to be able to get the battery out. Once it was out, putting in place wasn't easy either, but I finally got it in. Next I had to screw in the terminals. That proved to be much harder than I thought. I got the positive terminal in fine because there was plenty of room, but the negative terminal was in a space that my end wrenck (5/16) had little room to get a turn of the screw. I ended up using my channel locks because there was a stem long enough to get a nice grip. How ever, I still couldn't get the screw tight, but the car was starting with no problem....at least for a month or so. Then I got a call from the wife in the parking lot of Cosco. I told her to open the hood and wiggle the wires to the battery. She didn't know which wires to wiggle so no go on the start. I told her to call AAA, which she did. An hour later a contract garage idiot finally found her and after looking told her that I needed to get a new screw. He didn't do anything but wiggle to wire and the car started. After that, she began to experience a bad connection more and more to where it became everyday. Now she knew what to wiggle, but she told me that was the last time she was going to wiggle that wire or she would wiggle it up my wazoo! Okay, okay. That was enough push to get me to work on it. I went to Advance Auto and asked where the battery terminal screws were and the guy showed me two. One was longer than the other. I asked which one did I need and he asked if there were two wires going to the terminal. Yes I said and he told me to take the longer one. Got home and after fighting to get the old screw out, I found that the shorter one was the one for this battery. Since I had it out now, I didn't feel like putting it back in and just decided to walk to the store, about a half mile away. Got there and told him I needed the shorter one, but then I asked if there was a wrench for this fix. Yep, a nice little ratchet wrench for a fin so I got it. Walked home, inserted the new screw into the end of the wire (actually that was the hardest part of the job) put some made for petroleum jelly on the terminal and cable end, started the screw and couldn't wait to see how the wrench worked. Wow, completely tight in less than a minute and it was easy. But next time that sucker loses a battery, somebody else is going to be changing it.
Oh and BTW, people have kept telling me that Advance will change the battery for you. Yeah, in some cases they will, but the car has to be in their parking lot or close by and they don't do it for every car. I have a good hunch that if I drove that Rendezvous to their parking lot, they would tell me that this is one car they can't do this service. Then ask if I'd like for them to help change the windshield wipers?
Oh, and while I'm on a semi-rant, before the Rendesvous, we had an Old Silhouette. Loved that car and it was loaded, but once things started going wrong, it was all over. But there was a time when I thought I'd change spark plugs. I got the front three in quite easily, but I couldn't even reach the back three. Someone told me that I had to unbolt the back of the engine from the mounts and then tilt the engine forward to get access to those plugs. Uh uh, no way Jose. Had to hire someone to change three plugs. I am not going to do one damned thing to my Stratus R/T. I'll shell out the money first.
