by Steven Fletcher Nothing is worse than a dead starter battery on your motorhome, towed, or tow vehicle. There’s never a good time for a dead starter battery and it seems, for us anyway, it almost always happens at the worst time.
Here are a few tips to help you deal with a dead battery.
If you are boondocking way off the beaten path you can swap the motorhome or trailer battery for the starter battery until you can buy a new one. If your jumper cables are long enough you may not need to swap batteries.
Jumper cables have long been THE way to start an engine when the vehicle’s battery is dead …but you would be surprised how few people carry them. So even though you most likely will find someone willing to give you a jump, you better have your own jumper cables.
If you don’t already have a set of jumper cables we recommend getting a good set. They don’t cost that much, will last you a lifetime and are better suited for larger engines. The Coleman jumper cables pictured here are a good choice. They are twenty-five feet long, and made from heavy-gauge copper cable (AWG 4) with copper-plated jaws on the clamps. Keep the cables in something like the Bucket Boss cable bag. It’s well made and stows the cables in a small space without tangling.
About a year ago Fran’s car developed some kind of electrical problem that runs the battery down. Because it’s an intermittent problem our mechanic can’t fix it. Our solution was to buy a Jump Starter pack. Even though we still recommend a good set of jumper cables, this modern solution doesn’t require help from fellow RVers. It’s a quick and easy way to start an engine. In fact we used it to start someone’s SUV at the gas station last week. The whole process took less than a minuite. We keep it in the trunk ready for use.
Of course when all else fails you can call your Emergency Road Service. You do have one right? If you don’t Fran and I have used Good Sam ERS for many years and consider it money well spent.
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