Ask Someone: 2016 Dodge Caravan - Correction for power

The Show
1

You said a car battery is good for 600 Amp hours. 100 Amp hours in a car is a lot. You might have meant cranking Amps. Car batteries do not have the Amp hours on them any more.
Heated seats will draw more than 4 Amps. That’s only 50 Watts.

2

Pretty sure I never said any such thing.

1 Like
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It was in the Elkhart Truth on Sunday, July the 15th. Mr Magliozzi was replying with “It’s safe to use seat heaters if stranded in snow”. I could mail it to you, if you want. 600 Amp hour car battery and 4 Amp seat heaters. The Elkhart Truth is not noted for proof reading. I am licensed by the FCC.
Just trying to keep your credibility up. Nice column. Pete

4

You are not addressing Ray Magliozzi. You posted a topic on Car Talk forum and people signed into the forum post comments or answers. Or just sometimes a smart alec reply like I did.

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Sorry, obviously new at this.
Pete

6

Welcome to the forum and browse the topics and replies, you might find it fun.

7

obviously 600 amp-hours is incorrect. Typical values are 60-100 amp hours, to totally drain the battery. I’d guess it should be 60.

60 amp-hours / 4 amps = 15 hours.

8

Yes Bill. 600 would be high for a Greyhound bus.

Four Amps seems a bit low. That’s like one car headlight. One could measure the resistance of the heater and divide the Voltage by the resistance to get the current. Be sure to add in the resistance of the wiring that gets the current from the battery to the heater.
Cheers, Pete

9

You might have better luck contacting the newspaper you read it in. Maybe they can put you in contact with Ray.

A web lackey might also stop by, read this, and offer some help in your quest.

10

this is the the online current ed at cartalk.com

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Well, at least someone agreed with me about the 600 Amp hour battery. I didn’t want to think I was losing it, any more than I am.
Cheers, Pete

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You can probably find that edition of Ray’s column by clicking cartalk.com at the upper left, then under our show, click “dear car talk”. 600 amp-hours is of course incorrect. Good for you to point it out, but it might have just been a misprint in that particular newspaper. If you find it on the Dear Car Talk archives, let us know what it says there.

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as I said, this is the the online current ed at cartalk.com