Interesting twist to a routine battery replacement

[jestmaty]

My '04 left me stranded with a dead battery yesterday while I was getting my wife some new tires at discount tire.

Funny thing is, I own 3 sets of jumper cables and own 3 cars. 2 of the 3 cars were at Discount Tire when my battery crapped out on me. Yep, you guessed it.... no cables in either of my cars. STUPID!!

I parked yesterday, leaving the 2 DVD players on. One that runs off of cig lighter and is then plugged into the AUX and plays on the ceiling RES. My oldest son was watching it while parked. I forgot that I had the headlights on and that they don't turn off automatically until you remove the key. But, 15 minutes of sitting there with the lights on and DVDs running, my battery was toast.

I had the battery tested today at 2 different Autozone locations and both came up with bad battery. Bought a new battery....

I didn't want to have to reset the radio, window up function, nor do an idle learn again so my neighbor came up with a cool alternative.

He took a 9volt battery and cleanly hooked it up to a unused cigarette plug. What I mean to say is, he wired the 9volt to a spliced old plug. Maybe the plug was once used for a lost radar detector, or something like that and you wind up with a plug and the wire to the old/missing accessory. Wired in a diode as to not have the main battery back charge into the little 9volt and cause it to explode or overheat/catch fire We plugged that sucker in the main accessory outlet and it worked!!!

Took all of about 2 minutes to remove old battery and hook up new one.
Apparently the 9 volt kept the electronics happy because nothing was lost. The clock and radio kept power, the driver side up feature still works.

Sooooo..... No need to hassle with all the resetting procedures

I'll get a picture of it later. I'd bet anybody could make one up if they wanted to.

[tim.s]

Neat. Thanks for the info. Be sure to post your photos when you get a chance.

[jay]

Just another reason to trade every year, or less.

But it was a neat way to do it. So neat that






Whew, what a workout.

[rocky]

Thats an oldie but a goodie solution.

I've also used a battery maintainer charger to keep radio codes etc alive while swapping batteries

[xGS]

By any chance is your neighbor's name JC Whitney?

[humanoid]

xGS, post the link, man! Don't hold out on us!!!!

[krygny]

I think the battery has to be disconnected for more than just a few minutes for the window and idle to reset. When I changed the battery in my Pilot, the only thing I had to do was enter the radio code.

[xGS]

Originally posted by humanoid
xGS, post the link, man! Don't hold out on us!!!!

JC Whitney item #ZX818203U: [http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/S...&sku=ZX818203U].

However, if you search the web for auto or car computer memory saver, you'll find this type of device available from many other sources.

[jestmaty]

The picture above is exactly what we used, except our homemade rig was much uglier

[jon316]

The power ports in my Pilot are not energized when the car is off.
Do you turn the car "On" when backfeeding to complete the circuitry to allow current flow from the 9V to the dynamic ROMs throughout the vehicle?

[jestmaty]

Originally posted by jon316
The power ports in my Pilot are not energized when the car is off.
Do you turn the car "On" when backfeeding to complete the circuitry to allow current flow from the 9V to the dynamic ROMs throughout the vehicle?

EVERYTHING in the car was turned off. In fact, my neighbor, who wired the rig up, was concerned that opening a door would cause the thing to fail.

So, I rolled down the driver's window, turned off the key, then reached into the car to plug it in.

I quickly did my battery change and hooked up the + and - right away.

No problem loosing any of my settings.

[humanoid]

So everything off, plug the "thingy" in and do the battery change and that's it, right?

[jestmaty]

Yep!

[kerpal]

Originally posted by xGS


JC Whitney item #ZX818203U: [http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/S...&sku=ZX818203U].

However, if you search the web for auto or car computer memory saver, you'll find this type of device available from many other sources.

Your a customer of JC Whitney?? Had a bad experience there..