Sears put the wrong battery in to my car

My old diehard battery almost died within the warranty and so I went to sears to change my battery and engine oil. They told me they cannot start my car after battery and oil change. The probably reason is the my engine head gasket worn out the water entered and damage my engine. Though doubted (because I drove my car to sears that day morning without problem), I finally sold my car to junk yard. Since the battery is just changed by Sears and brandnew, I took out the battery before my car was towed. Just found out the battery (diehard 50936) is only 600 ccv; while my ford taurus 2000 needs 650 ccv battery (diehard 51836). Thus, it let me doubt the reason of unable to start: is that because the wrong 600 ccv battery cannot start my car, which require 650 ccv battery? I have pretty warm climate here 80 degree F.

The battery is not the problem, just a small difference in cold cranking amps. The car is gone so there is not much that can be done. Just never go to sears again. They won’t be around much longer anyway.

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a 600cca battery will crank a 350 cubic inch gasoline engine with no problem even at freezing temperatures.

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You’ll get the last laugh. Sears Holding has already sold its Craftsman line to Black & Decker/Stanley, has publically announced that it’s seeking a buyer for the Diehard brand, the appliance division, and the Home Services division. The CEO has also publically announced that they may not survive 2017.

Their current CEO, a former Hedge Fund Manager, was brought on board in 2015, apparently assessed the company and determined that the value of the brands it held was greater than the value of the company of a whole, and is selling off everything of value. I’d expect the balance to be liquidated.

That doesn’t help your problem, which is now history, but it might give you a miniscule amount of satisfaction to know. :smile:

I don’t know but I don’t think the auto services have been run by Sears for a long time.

There was an interesting story about the Sears founder in the Sunday paper incidentally. Turning over in his grave probably. He trained as a telegraph operator and went to work at a train station around Redwood Falls, MN. To supplement his income he sold pocket watches. He finally moved to Minneapolis adding wares to his catalog and then on to Chicago where he hired Roebuck as a watchmaker. He was a hard worker, visionary and died relatively young worth about 20 million. He never would have let Amazon get the best of him.

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You may be right. I’ve read this before.

Sears was a stroke of genius in its founding, a store that could sell to middle America through catalogs in a time when a great many middle Americans were often unable to access department stores. Sears was really the first to come up with a way to access this rural population to sell their products too. Unfortunately, the internet has displaced their business model. Rural middle America is no longer “cut out”.

Trivia: 20 years ago I inherited from my dad a heavy duty stapler that was decades old at that time. It was a Craftsman. A few weeks ago it began malfunctioning. I brought it back to Sears, told them that it might be 60 years old and I would totally understand if they didn’t replace it, never expecting them to replace it for me… and they gave me a “warranty replacement”! A brand new heavy duty stapler for nothing! Two young guys were involved in figuring out how to handle it. I suspect they new Sears was on its way out and figured they’d do a good deed. If they read this, they should know that they have my thanks.

Just out of curiosity . . .

I assume your dad’s Craftsman heavy duty stapler was made in usa

What about the new Craftman heavy duty stapler . . . ?

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I have no idea. I’ll look next trip to the workshop. :slight_smile:

A few years ago, my Craftsman made in usa shears failed

I exchanged them, and the new shears were made in china :frowning2:

Part of the genius was that those in the rural areas were forced to buy their products at the local general store where the prices were high. So Sears was able to put together volume purchase deals and then offer the products at lower prices with free delivery to rural areas. As I’ve said before, it really is not much different than today with the on-line shopping except the catalog is on-line now instead of printed. I might be off but they had the whole thing locked up but instead of converting the catalog to the internet, they concentrated on real estate and store sales, and gave the rest away to Amazon. When they eliminated the catalog, they lost their best marketing tool and all they had was the dirty stores left. Sears used to recruit on campus before the late 60’s downturn but their career path was always store management. Move from store to store and up the chain to store manager. Kind of ironic that the founder beat the pants off the general store, then became the general store, and is getting their pants beat off from the internet.

Back to cars. Never junk a car based on what a Sears Auto store says.

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Back to the OP, the battery should be fine enough to start the car, it is not the best choice but not a death knell. You drove your car there, pronounced dead and you sold it to a junkyard, only done passed second grade math and it does not add up.(joke)

I looked. It was made in the U.S.A. !!

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That is also my understanding of the situation.
In my state, the various “Sears” auto service locations were all sold to various entities several years ago. A large mega-dealership bought at least one of the “Sears” auto center locations in my state a few years ago.