My car battery is fully charged, but not charging anymore (faulty alternator - long story). In two days I am driving it to the mechanic to fix the alternator. I wanna know whether I can use the car meanwhile without risking to drain the battery?

It depends on how will you use your car in those 2 days. If its night time you will add more load coz of the lights. Its better to fix first your alternator to be safe in your driving. Hope this helps!

I know that you can buy one in the store, etc etc, but my car is already at the shop, and I wanted to know the general cost for a mechanic to charge the battery in my car. It’s a 1994 Ford Explorer, if that helps. The battery is a little over a year old. Thanks! I will be choosing best answer!

You really need to call some auto service people around in your area and ask for a free estimate.

Better yet, I recall plusrecipes.com having a small auto section where they offer great deals, like free estimates from local auto mechanics in your area, whom I would think would know the cost of their charging your car battery–heck right now one ad-link says you could save like 50% through what I read as competitive bidding or something like that–here’s the link:

http://plusrecipes.com/PlusRecipes_Free_Estimates_Auto_Repair.htm

Yeah, so call around or use the above link. I hope this is helpful. Good luck!

I put a new battery in my car and the motor starts up, but the indicators don’t work, the cabin light doesn’t come on, and the lights in the headlamps come on but the headlamps don’t pop up.

The battery that was in it last was 12V and 450CCA, this one is 12V and 460CCA.

Any ideas why it’s not working?

Make sure that you actually reconnected all the wiring to the battery and didn’t miss something. There are often accessory wiring that go to the electronics of the vehicle that hood to the battery that run the battery junction box. If you didn’t properly reinstall the battery it is possible that you may have blown a fuse, of fusible link, or relay even. You should check your owners manual to find all you junction box’s because now a days cars come with at least two to three or more any where from under the hood to the wackiest places you could think of. once you find them, all you have to do is get a simple tester to ground and check each fuse. When the tester doesn’t light up, you got a bad fuse.

Is there a good web site on researching reasonable prices for car parts. The place where I’ve dropped off my car has quoted me $110 or so for the battery. I know it takes not more than 10-15 minutes to install one, so, that means, they will probably charge me around $150-200 for the work and the battery.

Is that too much? How much should I be paying if I buy a battery on my own at say Walmart or some reasonably place store?

That’s a ripoff. You can get one at Autozone or Walmart for $60. It takes 5 minutes to put in.

I recently changed my car battery because my battery kept dying after multiple jumps, and there was nothing else wrong with the car besides the battery before the change, but now my car continually jerks and the rpms are way too high. What do I do to fix it?

Check your battery cables.

For years I’ve been told not to put a car battery down on a bare concrete floor. That it would drain the battery and somehow damage it’s rechargeability (sp). Is this true or an old wives tale?

Many years ago, auto batteries were made with a wooden case around a glass jar with the battery in it. Any moisture on the floor could cause the wood to swell and possibly fracture the glass, causing it to leak. Shortly after the introduction of "Hard Rubber" containers, which were somewhat porous and of a less than ideal design, there was a chance of current being conducted through the container of a high carbon content if the moist concrete floor permitted the current to find an electrical ground. These are two of the older reasons for not storing batteries on a concrete floor.

There is absolutely no problem with storing any modern battery on a concrete floor.

I want to use a wind generator type of thing and have the car battery be the storage cell. How would I wire this to power a few lights or appliances?

HI
as stated above you would have to get an inverter to change the power from DC to AC as house current is AC (alternating current) and Cars are DC (Direct current) or change you few lights and appliances to DC power.
good luck
tim

I have a 98 Nissan Frontier, no power locks, and i dont know how to turn off the dang alarm when Im installing the battery. I didnt even know I had an alarm! Any suggestions? Icant drive the car until I figure out how to get this alarm off.
Where is the alarm fuse? What is it labeled?

Try using the key to unlock the drivers door while the alarm is going off. That is how I manually disarm the alarm in my Sentra.

I bought an inverter for the chest freezer in my ice cream truck. The battery didn’t stay charged more than 4 hours. I need to buy a car battery charger and another battery to keep it charged up. I was looking at a 2/6/10 amp charger. About how long would it take to charge one battery? I want a quick cheap one.

an automotive cranking battery won’t last 6 months in a deepcycle application - get the biggest heaviest deep cycle batteries you can afford.

you want to charge your batteries at a starting current that is no greater than 25% of the RC (reserve capacity) rating, or 10% of the AH (amp-hour) rating of the battery.

get a charger that automatically shifts into "float charge" or "maintain mode" when it’s finished charging.

this is *not* the same as a "trickle charge".

My car battery is pretty much one turnover from dying so I was thinking about getting an Optima battery. What is the difference between the batteries?

Optima is expensive and sucks. Regular is less expense and doesn’t suck.