Unless the magic smoke has been let out, how would dismantling *any* electronic device tell you that it has been damaged?
Interrogating or attempting to interrogate the ECU with the equipment all patrols carry would often show the fault.
Patrols use the same garage time after time, and are often on first name terms with the staff. Contrary to what may generally be imagined, many patrols are keen to find out what may have caused a breakdown, and will ask at their next visit.
Chris
Limited experience of anything is pretty much without value.
With any service provided, you are often at the mercy of the individual you are dealing with. You may have had a bad experience; plenty of other folk are impressed enough to write letters of praise.
Who do you use instead, and how does your experience of them compare?
Yes, they can. But if the customer admits that they have jump-started their car, it started but stopped when the leads were removed then another cause would seem doubtful.
Yes, they advise users how to do this safely by printing the information in the handbook.
The majority of manufacturers disagree with you as they all make a point of including it in their handbooks.
How much "faffing about" is it to switch on HRW and heater blower before removing the leads? I see it as a total non-issue.
The OP asked if the information he had was correct. It was.
Chris
Actually I think we're all agreed that's worth it, we're just also of the opinion that it only makes any difference if your batterys knackered or disconnected & you get very unlucky & you where revving the engine when you disconnected the leads. I'll still bet most of the failures with jump leads wouldn't be prevented by switching on the fan & the demist.
If you've blown it with a current dump it will let the magic smoke out.
No one. I'd rather take my chances and save the cost. So far, so good. In the 5 or so years since I've only had one incident where I'd have needed them. A collapsed strut on the BMW. A local garage arranged recovery and did the repair. The recovery cost was a fraction of an AA subscription that would cover this - and they couldn't have fixed the fault anyway.
And with a voltage spike?
Chris
Good luck with that.
And if the fault had been late at night on a motorway?
Chris
I do it on the same basis that I use a wrist strap when I'm poking about inside computers. There are those that deride it as unnecessary; it so trivial to do, so why not?
Chris
The current dump's what makes a voltage spike.
Well I normally just hold onto the case, but yes, the same argument applies. Possibly too much so, you don't see that many things that static sensitive anymore, even if Farnell do insist on sending me resistors in static sensitive bags.
You use an emergency phone. Assistance can be arranged that way.
As the best of both worlds, I use Auto Aid - sort of an insurance policy against breakdowns. If you do break down, you either arrange it yourself or contact them and they get one of their local contacts to come and get you, cough up, then make a claim.
Haven't had to use it yet, but the very limited weasel words that might stop them paying up seemed reasonable to me.
Works out about half the AA price for me. Moneysavingexpert thought it was a good deal too.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Stephen saying something like:
Usually I connect pos battery pole to pos battery pole and neg-neg on the engine blocks.
Stray sparks, hydrogen, boom. I've seen it happen and the bloke concerned was ultra lucky he didn't lose his sight, the stupid bastard.
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