Interesting. Well I went to Autozone, and the young guy that came out to test my battery was very friendly, but he didn’t know anything about cars. He first asked me if my car was a 3.2 cylinder. Then he was trying to test my battery as a 6 volt, but since it did read zero on 12 volts I decided to go ahead and replace it and hope for the best. $120 for a battery with a 1 year warranty was surprisingly expensive.
Thanks for your help and thanks to others here as well. Much appreciated.
Not any more, that’s very typical.
I haven’t bought one for a few years but my delco batteries were always around $120 after the core with I dunno, three year replacement.
Just a couple comment though, dielectric grease is used to protect electrical connections, but red and tacky is not. So the wire needs to be cleaned for good contact first, then if you want to grease the thing so be it. When a car is jump started, the clamps are usually put on the connectors and not on the posts of the battery. So if jumping works but the battery is up, that suggests a poor connection.
Correction edited
Doing a simple web search of battery sellers before going some where would have eliminated the cost surprise .
Actually it’s not. It’s used in contacts to shield them from corrosion, but the actual conduction is metal to metal:
What Is Dielectric Grease? (motortrend.com)
Correction noted.
I canceled my mt subscription a couple years ago. I canceled my U.S. news subscription too about 50 years ago. So guess I missed it. Either way don’t use red and tacky.
Advice is worth what you pay for it. Refund in the mail.
I expect he meant to say “is it a 3.2 L (liter)?”. The replacement battery needed may differ slightly depending on which engine it is. You engine configuration is on a sticker on the underside of the hood. If he (or anybody )asks for this sort of info again, just show them that.
Glad you are back on the road with a reliable battery!
AutoZone and the other part stores chains have given up trying to be competitive on price. The installation definitely isn’t free, it’s included in the price. Walmart, Sam’s and Costco still have quality batteries for around $80, and longer warranty versions for around $100.
It is possible your old battery had a faulty connection internally that vibrated apart or heat/cooling expanded or contracted apart. Should the problem reoccur, remember your negative 12 vdc is or should be hard bolted to the car frame with no rust. That aside, it leaves the 12 vdc positive that goes through relays, which contacts therein may be pitted and/or worn. A wire connection may be loose, or rusted. Since the car kept running when the radio failed, you can assume the wiring from alternator downstream is ok. That should narrow it between battery + terminal and a fork of the +12vdc that goes to starter and accessory circuit. This could be a rusted bolt down connector, a water filled plastic socket/plug connection or even loose wiring in the fusebox. You might want to work backwards, from like the radio fuse toward the battery. See what other fused circuits failed when the radio failed that are on the same +12vdc power feed. I once had a high power industrial electronics box that worked fifteen years. Then it went dead. After over a week of tracking and tracing, using a slam and bang technique I found a little thin wire that went to a lock washer on a grounding post on the cabinet door. The manufacturer drilled a hole through the door, after it was painted. Then relied on the screw threads to brush against the side of the hole to make contact, rather than cleaning the paint off the flat part of the door the nut and washers were pulled against. The screw vibrated a millimeter or micrometer sideways and lost the ground return for the control ladder. So that’s the kind of things you must look for in intermittents. If you have no more troubles since replacing the battery, never mind.