Argh. Not a good day with the Autozone droids. During a 19 degree day this week, the Honda seemed to be cranking mighty slow. Since it warmed up yesterday and today was sunny, I took it over to have them do a battery test. Okay, he puts the tester on, and says "Battery's shot.". Not a huge surprise there, although I would have thought 4 years was a little young, even though it's some off-brand Japanese battery.
He has me start the car while the tester is connected, and says "Whoa! Your starter is pulling 270 amps, that's way too high. That's what probably killed your battery.". Uh huh, right, my 4 year old starter is also kaput? It gets better, then he says "My tester is saying your alternator has bad diodes in it. I've never seen all three bad on a car, what do you want to replace first?". I asked if his tester accounted for the fact that Honda's alternator isn't continuously variable, but switches between high output and low output depending on load. No answer. He ran the test again, and it still failed. So, I said I'll see what I can find out first.
Get home, and renew my Helm subscription, and find out there's a TSB from Honda saying that the alternator tests the part stores do often report false failures. No kidding!! Then I look up alternator and starter diagnosis, and find out Honda deems a starter that takes 380 amps or less as good. Gee, and my starter was bad because it's pulling 270? What hat did he pull that number from? I didn't have Honda's official load tester for checking the alternator, but figured if I turn everything on and the voltage is still within the good range (13.5 to 15.1 at 3000 RPM), then it's probably OK. Sure enough, after turning on headlights, foglights, air conditioning, rear defroster, radio, wipers, and plugging in my camper's running lights, it's still holding 14.2 volts, even at idle. Battery shows it's drooping to about 11.5 with just the headlights on with the ignition off, so I'm thinking the battery really is kaput.
I go back to store, and calmly state that I'll just replace the battery, to which the guy asks what I'm going to do about the alternator and starter, and I state that according to Honda, the alternator and starter are fine. Well, he was none to pleased with that, but pulls up the battery list. Rings up the battery, knocks off the core charge since I brought tools to change it in their parking lot, and I walk out with the new battery. Just about to drop the new one in, and realize there's something seriously wrong. It calls for a group 51R, and he grabbed the group 51, with the terminals mixed up. Drat! No, the cables don't have enough give to put the battery in backwards, so back into the store.
The guy who sold me the battery had disappeared, but I showed on the receipt that he sold me the right one, but grabbed the wrong one. Should be simple, just put this group 51 back, and grab the 51R, right? Heck no. The poor lads had to do an exchange, insisting their inventory will be screwed up if they don't do it that way. I point out their inventory IS screwed up already, and this way it will make it correct. Oh no, we can't do that when $100 batteries are on the line. Ok fine, we'll do it the hard way. What should have been 5 seconds took 5 minutes instead, and they still had to scratch their heads why the group 51R inventory showed one less than what they had .
So, don't trust them to tell you your alternator and starter are bad, and pay very close attention to the battery before you connect it. I'm thinking a strongly worded letter to Autozone might be in order. I shudder to think, what if I had been some automotive neophyte who wouldn't know any better?
He has me start the car while the tester is connected, and says "Whoa! Your starter is pulling 270 amps, that's way too high. That's what probably killed your battery.". Uh huh, right, my 4 year old starter is also kaput? It gets better, then he says "My tester is saying your alternator has bad diodes in it. I've never seen all three bad on a car, what do you want to replace first?". I asked if his tester accounted for the fact that Honda's alternator isn't continuously variable, but switches between high output and low output depending on load. No answer. He ran the test again, and it still failed. So, I said I'll see what I can find out first.
Get home, and renew my Helm subscription, and find out there's a TSB from Honda saying that the alternator tests the part stores do often report false failures. No kidding!! Then I look up alternator and starter diagnosis, and find out Honda deems a starter that takes 380 amps or less as good. Gee, and my starter was bad because it's pulling 270? What hat did he pull that number from? I didn't have Honda's official load tester for checking the alternator, but figured if I turn everything on and the voltage is still within the good range (13.5 to 15.1 at 3000 RPM), then it's probably OK. Sure enough, after turning on headlights, foglights, air conditioning, rear defroster, radio, wipers, and plugging in my camper's running lights, it's still holding 14.2 volts, even at idle. Battery shows it's drooping to about 11.5 with just the headlights on with the ignition off, so I'm thinking the battery really is kaput.
I go back to store, and calmly state that I'll just replace the battery, to which the guy asks what I'm going to do about the alternator and starter, and I state that according to Honda, the alternator and starter are fine. Well, he was none to pleased with that, but pulls up the battery list. Rings up the battery, knocks off the core charge since I brought tools to change it in their parking lot, and I walk out with the new battery. Just about to drop the new one in, and realize there's something seriously wrong. It calls for a group 51R, and he grabbed the group 51, with the terminals mixed up. Drat! No, the cables don't have enough give to put the battery in backwards, so back into the store.
The guy who sold me the battery had disappeared, but I showed on the receipt that he sold me the right one, but grabbed the wrong one. Should be simple, just put this group 51 back, and grab the 51R, right? Heck no. The poor lads had to do an exchange, insisting their inventory will be screwed up if they don't do it that way. I point out their inventory IS screwed up already, and this way it will make it correct. Oh no, we can't do that when $100 batteries are on the line. Ok fine, we'll do it the hard way. What should have been 5 seconds took 5 minutes instead, and they still had to scratch their heads why the group 51R inventory showed one less than what they had .
So, don't trust them to tell you your alternator and starter are bad, and pay very close attention to the battery before you connect it. I'm thinking a strongly worded letter to Autozone might be in order. I shudder to think, what if I had been some automotive neophyte who wouldn't know any better?
