Being independent can be incredibly fulfilling.
It can also be fucking exhausting sometimes.
My car battery died, so I ordered a new one. I carefully checked the amperage, dimensions, and compatibility with my car model. It arrived, I removed the old battery (which was no small feat, and I was ridiculously proud of myself when I finally managed it) and then discovered that the terminals on the new battery were reversed and it wouldn’t work.
So now I have to return it. Which means carrying a 15 kg battery to the post office.
Then I have to wait for the correct one to arrive.
And after that, I get to figure out why two of my tyres are flat (no problem, I have a spare tyre and ordered a charger/air blower thingy, hopefully it will work).
I am perfectly capable of taking care of my own shit.
I’m just getting a little tired of it. But lesson learned: buy the exact same model of whatever you need to replace if you can.
/rant
I don’t have enough information, but assuming your battery is compatible, can you just rotate it so that the terminals line up again?
I honestly wouldn’t have even thought about that. Thank you for sharing so now I’ll know if I ever need it. I’m sending you all the ehugs.
Roadside assistance is worth every penny if you can swing it.
I would normally agree, but AAA in the US has been fully enshittified.
Any details?
A lot of insurance policies include it now
I have no advice, only hugs.
Yeah, there’s a code letter / number combination for getting the terminals and size right, and it’s not obvious
https://askmyauto.com/car-battery-numbers-explained/?amp=1
Sucks to find this sort of thing from experience, sorry
A lot easier than checking three dimensions and maximum current once you know about it, that’s for sure.
I’ve fallen quite far down the degoogling / selfhosted tech rabbit hole.
Benefits are cool, but it is nothing but this.
I feel your pain, sister.
I left that Era of " all by myself " and now I play dump even when I know what should be done. I make my life easy and less hustle and more space for pleasure to be served. Ridiculously, this my behavior bring pleasure to opposite sex 😅 only if they knew where I truly stand. Sometimes I have to interrupt their help, because can’t see how not knowledgeable they do the work and this is only time when I feel uncomfortable, because my true intentions are seem🙈
I feel like I’m deliberately stepping on a landmine here as I’m not a woman, but this came up on my feed. What do you mean exactly that your terminals were swapped? Battery is a rectangle, if you turn it through 180 degrees your terminals are swapped. If you checked the battery was compatible with the vehicle there shouldn’t have been any trouble.
Anyway I’m gonna stop trying to armchair diagnose your problem and assume that you have a real issue that necessitated returning the battery, because you seem to know what your about and that’d be a pretty amateur mistake. But we all make amateur mistakes so worth double checking.
Now, for the real advice. Never undertake any repairs that are going to take you out of commission except Durning business hours of the hardware store. You WILL need that tool/doohickey/widget
You knew the rules and still mansplained in the women’s only community?
I don’t think I mansplained. Or at least I explained it the same as I would to whoever else
I didn’t check the rules, and I don’t make a habit of it. If you come up on my feed that’s on you. If I went seeking this place out, I’d feel more obliged to be familiar. I’ll be sure to never ever engage with this place again though, don’t worry.
If you don’t curate your feed that’s on you.
I feel like I’m deliberately stepping on a landmine here as I’m not a woman
You knew what you were doing.
You could’ve left gracefully, y’know. It’s ok to be wrong.
Just to get this straight … you’re posting in a community that specifically asks men to stay out. And you don’t know anything about car batteries.
That’s a wonderful double whammy of mansplaining. Well done, good job
It came up on my feed, I didn’t read the rules. I do know a thing or two about car batteries but I’m fine if you want to assume I don’t. Just trying to be helpful
They should have their own instance that isn’t federated until Lemmy adds the ability to not post to all. Until then, expect anyone and everyone to reply.
Out of respect, I will not be replying to anyone. I said what I said. Reddit had the same problem, but they had an option for subreddits to not post to /all. Until Lemmy includes this option, expect anyone to reply or move to a defederated instance in the interim. I would wager most people who read a post on all do not read the rules of the community or the community they are replying to.
Women are allowed to exist on the internet without cloistering ourselves.
It’s site-wide rules that everyone adhere to community specific rules.
Better idea, you should log off and delete your devices.
Just had to, didn’t you?
Yeah, I thought so too and I kept on going thinking I would just turn it 180 but the terminals are offset to one of the border, not centered, so if I turn it 180°, the terminals would be closer to the windshield. Positive cable reaches it fine but not the negative one, the cable is too short.
And yes, that was an amateur mistake, I am an amateur :), one less that I’ll do now though.
I appreciate your advice, there’s probably something I haven’t thought off.
The cables almost never have any slack, and as OP said, the terminals are offset to an edge of the battery, even sometimes located on the front face of the battery. Car batteries suck.
That sucks.
I’m working on some plumbing and I’ve come home with the wrong part more often than I want to admit. By the time I’m home there is no way I’m going back out, so it gets put aside until I remember again/have the energy to deal with it.
You didn’t ask for advice, so putting this behind a spoiler so you can ignore it easily.
spoiler
Is there some reason you want to do this all yourself? Your post sounds exasperated. I get wanting to be able to diagnose car issues and the appeal of saving money, plus the pride of getting it done. I was so close to changing my own car battery recently except that mine is a weird one apparently and the place that had them also had an install service so I was like, “why not?”. It was also early spring and I don’t have a garage so I am sure my enthusiasm would have faded as soon as I started the work lol. It doesn’t always feel good, but once and a while I give something up and there is a lot of relief.
All the garage around are on vacation currently and it started as a pretty straight forward job, and the battery would needed to be ordered anyway since my car is 30 years old and the model not common here. I thought I could manage before my garage was open again, and now that I’ve started, I will finish what I can, since I’ve invested effort and time.
I’m exasperated today because I got very deflated when I thought I was pretty close to finish, but I will enjoy the process once it is resolved, however that will be.
Hey, thanks for the spoiler on the unsolicited advice, it is so thoughtfull and I appreciate both, the spoiler and the advice. Thank you :)
Good luck! I understand the deflated feeling. I spent like two hours gathering parts yesterday based on the apparent availability of a different part. Turns out it was misleadingly named and not what I needed. I could have cried in the store lol.