Brrrrr….Jump Starting Henry II
It’s mighty cold - down to ten below last night. This morning I trotted out to fire up Henry and head off to work. However, poor Henry was an ice cube. Instead of roaring into life, he emitted the dreaded “wirrrrrrr”. As all of you that live or have lived in a cold climate know, the “wirrrrrrr” sound is a bad sound. The sound of a car that is not going to start.
We left Henry at home today in the sort of futile hope that maybe a miracle would occur - the temperature would rise and Henry’s battery would come back to life. But, today’s high was 1 degree above zero. Definitely not of miracle quality. So, tonight Peter and I jumped through a ton of ridiculous hoops to get jump start Henry and get him going:
- Figure out where the battery located in Peter’s brand new Lexus 400H - “Satchel”.
- Figure out how to get the little plastic cotter pin-like thingies off of the Satchel’s battery cover so that we could get to his battery terminals.
- Discover that we had an insolvable geometry problem involving our 6 foot jumper cables, Henry’s location right up next to the house, Henry’s battery located on his left side (closest to the house), Satchel’s alignment coming out of the garage and his battery location on the right side - a long long long way aways from Henry’s battery.
- Plan B: Try to push Henry down the driveway into the cul de sac. But he refuses to move.
- Much frustration.
- Ah Ha moment - discover big chunk of ice under Henry’s front right tire. Chip away ice. Launch Henry!
- Discover while Ski Boy is pushing Henry and me down the driveway that the steering wheel locked. Frantically pull car keys from coat pocket (with very numb fingers) and insert key into ignition and get wheels turned just in time to avoid being pushed into the bushes.
- Get cars aligned nose to nose for jump.
- Positive to Positive. Negative to Ground.
- Try to start Henry. Nothing.
- Retreat to warmer indoors. Review owners manual. Ah Ha - the ground needs to be on the engine block far away from the battery.
- Positive to Positive. Negative to Ground - way far away from the battery.
- Henry roars into life!!!!!
- Load up Tyge into Satchel. Peter, Satchel and Tyge follow Steph to Peter’s office - home of underground heated parking.
- Tuck Henry in for the night.
- Return home triumphant. Huzzahs All Around!
All this was done at about 5 below zero with a brisk north wind. Big Brrrrr….
Henry’s battery is definitely feeling the pain of 6 years of outdoor winter parking. It might be time for a new one. He’s going into the shop on Wednesday.
Hello. I am 
You need a battery charger to hook him up to in order to keep him warm. Also there used to be electric heating pads for batteries.
Or, you know, you can move to NYC. That way your car would just be stolen before the battery had a chance to die. Zing!
Is SB’s car named after Satchel Paige?
Well, sort of Satchel Paige, Thomas “Satch” Sanders, former hoopster for the Celtics, and cause it is just a cool name for a vehicle in which things (such as me) are carried about, hence, a satchel, right?
PS He also responds well to Satchmo (a la Louis Armstrong).
Sorry, my eyes glaze over whenever someone talks about a sport other than baseball.
The reason you hook the ground up after the hot somewhere on the motor, away from the battery is to avoid making a spark near the battery.
Your dead battery is probably not an issue. But they tell you that because the people writing the manual want to cover all the bases. If there is something else wrong with the car, the battery isn’t dead and has recently been charging, it good be venting hydrogen sulfide gas.
If you make a spark inside the cloud of H2S gas, it will light off. This is a bad thing because that stuff has a lot of energy.