How the "correct" cigarette lighter wires will save you from costly starter repairs

Many car owners are familiar with the phenomenon when a car suddenly stops starting in the middle of winter. Well, if it's just a "dead" battery. It is much worse if the problem lies in the malfunction of one or another equipment of the car's electrical network! How to avoid, at first glance, an obvious and costly repair - in the material of the AvtoVzglyad portal.

The author of these lines happened to get acquainted with a little-known "life hack" against his will during the New Year holidays. It so happened that my old, but correct (frame) Japanese SUV stood motionless for the first half of the holidays in the yard in front of the entrance. At some point, it was necessary to go on business. He sat behind the wheel of the car, pressed the brake pedal, turned the ignition key - in response, the “tidy”, as expected, lit up with pictograms. Habitually waiting for some of them to go out, and the fuel pump pumps gasoline to the injectors, I turn the key all the way and ... instead of the usual buzzing of the starter, I hear only a quiet click of the relay from under the hood. We've arrived!

My first thought was that the starter had failed. I didn’t even think to sin on the battery: a three-year-old German-made battery cannot “die” so abruptly! But just in case, he “rang out” a neighbor-car owner. They threw wires from his car to mine (almost new, pretty ones) in order to “light up” the engine of the “old woman”. Just in case, for greater reliability, I did not start right away, but decided to charge my battery from a neighbor's car for about 30 minutes. Fortunately, her owner did not mind at all and patiently watched the engine of his “donor” rumble.

After half an hour, I again get behind the wheel of my tarantass (the process of recharging from another car continues!), I turn the key again, I watch the tidy light up cheerfully, I try to start the engine again - silence again! There is no doubt left — starter end. Sadness: a car with automatic transmission, you can’t start it “from a pusher”. And to remove the starter on your own in the cold to send it for repair is another “pleasure”.

In general, I called a tow truck and took my "swallow" to a car service specializing in starter-generator affairs - entirely, so to speak. There, having unloaded and given 4000 rubles to the tow truck driver, I heard that the cost of resuscitation of my starter would be in the amount of 3000 to 10000 rubles - depending on what exactly had failed there. Pretty "pleased" with such layouts, he left the car in the care of the masters, and he went home.

A few hours later - a call from the service: “we did not repair your starter. Your car starts normally, just the battery is out of order, ”the specialist pronounced the verdict. And then it turned out the following.

Servicemen, like me, at first decided that the starter was a skiff. But they also decided to play it safe and first tried to start the car from an external drive. But, unlike me, they "lighted" her motor from a stationary powerful current source and, most importantly, with the "correct" wires!

It turns out that my starting wires - exactly the same under different brands everywhere and sold in many in auto shops - are complete nonsense. They have too thin copper wire under good-thick insulation. The own resistance of this wire is such that it is not able to transmit current sufficient to start the motor in the case when the battery is so “killed” that it is no longer able to even turn the starter slightly. The master advised me to get the right lighting wires for the future.

To do this, you need to separately buy a welding single-core copper wire (with a cross section of at least 10 mm) and securely attach to it “crocodiles” from my purchased wires for lighting, which turned out to be useless in real operation. So I'll do it. And then after all, an unplanned replacement of the battery cost me a little. Taking into account the services of a tow truck, it is about twice as expensive as the store price of a new battery ...