What are your opinions of AAA?

I left my lights on and the car battery is dead again for the second time in six months. Unless I get lucky and catch my neighbor early in the morning or the battery rebounds a little (radio, interior lights work, etc.), I'm going to have to call a local garage for a boost. I sure do miss my standard in times like these. Anyhow I was thinking of joining triple AAA so I would be covered if this happens again. What are people's experiences with the service? Is it worth paying for the premium service? It seems like the only real benefit is 100 mile towing. Although that would bring great peace of mine, the only few times I needed a tow in my 23 years of driving, it was always locally.

On a side note, anybody have those portable battery pack with the jumper cables attached. How expensive are those and how often do you need to charge them up? We have one at work and it performed very well. I was thinking if not horrible expensive, it might be worth it to carry one in the trunk providing you can go at least a couple of months inbetween charging it.

I see one for $55. Not bad. Doesnt say the discharge rate, but if you only leave you lights on at home, you will be ok. Just leave it on a charger, and pull it off when you need it. Otherwise just stick it in your trunk and maybe 'top it off' one a month or something.
Also, you could stick a Higher powered spotlight in your trunk/car. Pending the size of your enghine and the power it needs to start, your spot could potentially start it. I know it could start my old '92 Civic rather easily. I think it could power it from the inside as it was plugged into the ciggarette lighter as well. Once I was charging it in the car, and turned the car off and the stereo, non stock I might add, continued to play, off the battery in my spot. That was rather weird. But it did happen.

Cameron

I have one. I forget to turn my lights off during the day when it's raining and the gestapo requires me to use headlights. This thing comes in handy.

The battery should tell you how often to top it off. Once every three months is pretty much standard. The thing can go much longer and still maintain a useful charge, but lead acid batteries should be kept fully charged when stored or they will lose capacity permanently.

I never leave home without my AAA but it won't start my car.

If you have a few hours, a high output charger/booster can do the trick. I have used a 50/30/10 amp charger/starter and it is a 10 amp charger with 30 amp fast charger 50 amp starter that runs for about 15 mins or so duty mode. I have a pair of 20 foot 4 guage jumper cables in my car and can talk people into giving me a jump when I am not at home.

I keep one at the house. I charge it about once every two months and use it 3-5 times a year. It's 3 years old and still going strong. I also use it to power my small ($30) compressor to fill wheel barrow and riding mower tires. I drive a different car home every night so I KNOW it's only a matter of time before one leaves me stranded. A $50 jump box is cheaper than AAA for the year.

A jump box is a good idea, but AAA covers more than just a dead battery. My family has been very pleased with the service they have had from our region of AAA, and using it once a year generally lets you get your moneys' worth out of it. I look at it as a form of travel insurance. The additional services are just frosting on the cake. It isn't that expensive.

We have AAA and it's OK. The weak link is the towing service that they contract to. In this area they like to use a 24 volt battery to jump cars. It's hard to prove, since they disconnect it quickly. That's hard on your car and battery. They have 12 and 24 volts available to be able to jump some diesels. Our local AAA towing aslo has a bad habit of doing two or more service calls in one run. My RX7 was towed around for 2 hours with a blown rear differential. I know because I waited at the garage for it. Turns out the guy serviced several customers (jumps, gas, etc) while dragging my car around on the tow truck.

It's still good enough that we've been members for 15 years.

I have one of the jumper packs. It has a 'float' charger so I just leave it plugged in. It's handy for power failures too, since I can hook up a small inverter to get low power AC.

Daniel

bobisculous -

Do you think the 6V sealed lead acid in my Thor could start my Dodge Dakota 6 cylinder? I thought it might. What an excuse to buy another Thor.

I've got a 50/30/20 charger starter and it can get me going in just minutes. Of course the beefy jumpers with aggressive jaws help.

If I stop to help someone I do evaluate the general maintenance condition of the car and what type jumpers they have. If the vehicle hasn't been well maintianed and they use wimpy jumpers I'll give it one shot or maybe no shot.

If you pulled out your big ars 4 gauge jumpers I'd stay with you until we got it started.

Good question about AAA. I've wondered the same thing.

A 6v SLA wont start nothing... perhaps a pair would as you need 12v+ to try to start a car. I got my 4ga cables at walmart for $20, someone swiped my better sears 4ga 16foot cables I used to have back in the 80s. IMO it is a good $20 investment because wimpier cables (8-12ga and up) are only good for starting/charging almost dead vehicle batteries while a 4ga and lower set of cables you could remove their battery completely and start it. If I could get a high output small SLA starter gadget for dirt cheap (under $20) I would probably bite but for more than that and as rare as I would use it I would rather spend the bucks on a seperate car battery and use my jumper cables instead.

Thanks. So maybe series two Thors in an emergency?

I used to keep fishing gear, a trolling motor and deep cycle battery in the truck. That worked well. Only had to use it once.

I don't truly know the voltage of the SLA in a thor for sure as I don't have one. You need 12-14v to SAFELY jump start a car as in... not burning out electronics in the car by overvoltage and less than 12v may not be enough to turn over the starter well but 10v may work if the car starts easily enough. If the cable from the battery is short you could get by with a smaller gauge cable because the current loss due to resistance would be less, the longer the cable the greater the loss because resistance adds up due to length.
This is why these jump starters using SLA (possibly nicads also?) don't have 4 gauge cables on most of them and work well while most cars come with 4-6 gauge battery cables in them from the factory.

I can just see it now.... Honey.. I need to buy another thor in case we have a dead battery in the car I can jump it with the two of them..... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crackup.gif

Another note.. do NOT connect both cables to the dead battery terminals.... connect the negative one to a grounding point on the frame somewhere away from the battery because discharged Lead acid batteries vent hydrogen which is very explosive and a spark can be dangerous. Wearing protective glasses/goggles is a good idea also. I have a pair in my toolbox I need to put in with my jumper cables so I will have less chance of forgetting to use them.

I just bought AAA a few month's ago, within the first month I needed a tow when my clutch hydraulics broke. I think that one tow already paid for the AAA.

I think it is relatively cheap insurance for these type of emergencies and worth the money.

Ok, where can these battery jumps be bought and for how much? I hope I could get something to do the job for under $50 if possible. I know other SLA applications such as computer uninterupted power supplies have come way down in price.

What exactly are they called so I can do a google search?

I still may join AAA, just wanted to explore all options, possibly do both.

I bought this one at Sears about 5 years ago. I'm glad I did. It costs $80 though. Maybe the cheaper ones work as well.

Sears $80 Schumacher Instant Power

I think the quality and price of lead acid batteries varies greatly. This might explain the difference in price. I don't know.

I prefer to prevent the problem in the first place with a headlight alarm and/or a battery protector like this one:

http://www.prioritystart.com/ps_auto.html

That way, you don't have to wait for AAA to come.

canceled my long time AAA membership two years ago. went to Sam's club deluxe membership package instead, which includes towing.

Cost was way less than AAA and service is equal or better than AAA. Your spouse is included at no extra cost.

My 3.5 MCP Thor has a twelve volt battery. It comes with two 6 volters in series. Same difference. I'm pretty sure the 10 MCP Thor also uses 12 volts.

Both of these can use a 12 volt car headlight bulb.

Hmmm...I've had very good service from AAA when I needed it. My parents bought me a membership when I was in college, and I've had it ever since.
At a minimum, you can get all the free maps you can carry from the AAA offices by merely showing your AAA card. I got an international driver's license from AAA (I think it was a couple bucks cheaper than normal), and you can use them to make basic travel arrangements, tickets, reservations, etc. There's a AAA discount at a lot of hotels/motels, a discount at several car rental places, etc.
I had free tows once when I got flat tires on a road trip (two within about 4 hours of each other. Not fun). Had to buy the replacement tires, but each of the tows was free.
I've had them come out and slim jim the car door, including on the door of a car I was a passenger in, not the owner or driver.
Perhaps the biggest savings I ever saw from AAA was when my sister had her kids get stuff out of the trunk of her car...and ended up locking her keys in the trunk (she was visiting me, about 2.5 hours away from her home).
She had AAA Plus, and with that upgraded status, got the guy to come out and MAKE a custom key to open her trunk - at no added charge. He said it would have been like $85 to do it without AAA Plus (this was in South Carolina in like '91 or so).
So, for me, it's always been worth it, at least for the peace of mind.
Dave

My wife and I have been AAA members for most of the last ten years. We've had to use their towing or roadside assistance service a couple of times, and have taken advantage of all of their free maps and tourbooks and campbooks for multiple trips all over the US (42 states and counting!) We're not traveling quite as much anymore since we have two young children, but we have a trip to California planned in a couple of years, and a trip to Key West in a year or two. It's worth it to me for the convenience and peace of mind.

-Keith

Mine is A EverStart MAXX heavyduty jump Starter 600 amp starter
22/amp hour whatever that means. Works great for jumping my van it also has 2 plugs to run 12volt stuff. Big heavy and yellow looks great sitting next to my big heavy yellow Thor 10MCP /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif I do not recall what I paid for it but I got it at Wally World they had a smaller one but the 600amp seemed to catch my eye. I know Sears sells a version in the auto
store. Mine has saved the day many times and if not used place on charger once every 3 months. I have jumped my Van
four or five times before recharging (it has a test button to look at)also states it is spark resistant and I admit so far it has not sparked one time while hooking it up. I did have to bite the bullet on a new battery today. 85.02 at Sears for the "middle of the road" Die Hard. I almost passed out but thats what credit cards are for I guess. My old Die Hard was almost 8 years old.
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