Removes corrosion and dirt from battery terminals
and cable clamps. The external brush cleans cable
clamps and the internal brush cleans terminal posts.
Comes with an aluminium cap for protection.
    

Last week my wife took her SUV into a nearby quick-lube emporium for a routine oil-and-filter change. You may ask why I didn't just do it myself. Hey, not only was I out of town, but there was also another car and a motorcycle halfway apart in the shop. Plus, she has plenty of other projects for me to do around the house—plumbing, electrical work, the works. And getting an oil change is something that anyone can do for her anytime. I need to do stuff like rewire the overhead light in the furnace room, so I'm certainly not copping out on my husbandly duties or anything.

Understood? Okay, so back to the quick-lube joint.

My wife calls me from the waiting room. The service writer is telling her the battery is marginal, and she should buy a new one—right then—or her car might not start. To which I remind her that I replaced her battery less than two weeks ago.

Meanwhile, the service writer produces a printout from their fancy-dan battery-load tester. It clearly shows a cold-cranking-amps test result of 656 amps. The cold-cranking-amps (CCA) rating is the number of current a new, fully charged 12-volt battery can deliver at 0 F for 30 seconds, while maintaining a voltage of at least 7.2 volts. The higher the CCA rating, the greater the starting power of the battery. This guy's maintaining that her 800-amp-rated battery is performing poorly enough that she should buy a new one.

So, of course, I'm not going to let my wife buy a battery until I test it myself. End of phone call.

She calls back 10 minutes later to say that the mechanic has done another battery-load test with a different tester, and the results are no different. Well, I admire the quicky-lube's persistence, but I've got a load tester myself, and everyone knows ... I'm the skeptical sort. Not to mention the fact that this battery is brand new. If it's really gone bad already, I'm going to return it to the AutoZone where I bought it two weeks before.

That evening I pull my wife's truck into the shop and test her battery with my load tester. It doesn't have a fancy printout or temperature compensation feature for measuring reduced battery performance at low temperatures. It's a simple resistive load tester, which draws a fixed couple of hundred amps for 15 seconds and measures the voltage the battery can maintain under this load. Her battery passes with flying colors, losing only a few tenths of a volt under load after the requisite time period.

Now I'm ticked off. I had to remove the battery hold-down bracket to read the label on top of the battery to check the printed rating. It's clearly marked: CCA RATING: 640 AMPS, CRANKING CAPACITY: 800 AMPS. Cranking capacity is a rating used to describe the discharge load in amperes that a new, fully charged battery at 32 F can continuously deliver for 30 seconds while maintaining a terminal voltage equal to or greater than 1.2 volts per individual cell. It is sometimes referred to as marine cranking amps. This is not the same as CCA, largely because the battery is tested at a much warmer temperature, where battery performance is better.

Her battery actually tested 656 amps for CCA, slightly better than the printed CCA specification, not worse. The printout from the tester clearly showed that the test performed was for CCA. The 800-amp number on the top of the battery is for cranking capacity, not cold-cranking amps.

Now, the question is, are the guys at this quick-lube shop really not cognizant of the difference between these two industry-standard ratings, or are they simply taking advantage of someone—my wife—who doesn't? They would have had to remove the hold-down clamp like I did to read the label, so it's not like they were guessing. I'm leaning toward calling this a scam attempt.

And that's unfortunate, because most shops and most technicians and service writers in the auto repair industry are intelligent, well-trained and honest. I've worked in the car repair business most of my life, and this kind of thing is the exception rather than the rule.

The bottom line is that we, as consumers, have a responsibility to be at least somewhat informed as to the complexities of the technologies we depend on. Caveat emptor. (Let the buyer beware.) And if you don't, don't let someone you don't know or trust convince you to make a major purchase without getting a second opinion. You'll need to talk to a local mechanic, because I'm not giving out my cellphone number.