Don’t mess with that!

One of the first things I did when I got back to the states was to take the truck to a Valvoline Instant Oil Change and get my oil changed. You know the little building you pull into, driving over an oil pit, and they have guys work on your car from above and below to get you in and out in 15-20 min. The funny thing is they are always trying to find new ways of attaching additional sales onto the deal. They have always done air cleaners, windshield wipers, tranny flushes, coolant servicing, “better” synthetic oil, and the like, but they have never performed any sort of automotive shop test on my car. These all seem to make sense – why not have them do other fluid related activities. So I wasn’t really surprised when they pulled out a cheap looking battery tester and started messing around with that.

Of course testing a battery is not rocket science. Anyone who can read instructions can do it. Turn car off, check, clip red cable to positive terminal, check, clip black cable to negative terminal, check, press test button. However there is a little thing that is not in the instructions. Running a test through the battery cables and not clipped onto the terminals will always make the battery look weaker than it is. But apparently no one told these guys. Because that is exactly what they did, connecting the tester to the brackets of the battery cable and not the battery. So of course the battery read weak. So this prompted them to come up and warm me about being stranded in the middle of nowhere when my battery died when it was cold.

I don’t know why but this always pisses me off. I know it is their job, I know that they are doing what they should be doing, but dang it, I do know a couple of things and I don’t want to be treated like a moron just because most people are ignorant about their cars. I only use the rapid oil places in the winter because it is too cold to do it in the driveway. Otherwise I take care of this stuff myself for the most part. So NO I DON’T WANT A NEW BATTERY and stop messing with that. Ok well just felt like ranting a bit. FYI I would suggest not letting the oil monkeys mess with your battery. Oh and I always buy a battery that could start the truck ½ dead so even if it were as bad as they said I would not be worried as the battery would only be down to the recommended strength once it had only ½ its capacity. I do live in a state where temps get well below zero….