Cold Weather Means it is time for a new Truck Battery
The old Ford F150 , 1993 model year, groaned but would not turn over this AM in 30 degree morning chill. Yes , we have been noting the last week or two that morning starts are a bit iffy . Until now it has always started .
We tend to buy Advance Auto stuff , not that it is so good , but that there always is a store close by no matter where one is . We had an unfortunate experience several years back with an Exide Top – of the line battery , that needed warranty attention . The original seller had gone out of business , and other Exide dealers failed to help out on it .
Advance has a ”Gold” battery that with all the fees and core charge and all taxes comes to about $140 or so .
Son-in-law Mark Stolzfus had mentioned to me a while back that Advance Auto stores always has on-line deals worth checking out . We checked on-line and sure enough , a $20 on-line shopping coupon applied to this battery . And whoa, something much bigger was there too. Until Dec. 12 , a $50 coupon on future purchases applied too, on this particular battery , E-mailed to you and good for 21 days after that . Thanks ,Mark, for the tip.
Wow , a full 50% off in a round-a-bout way . We purchased it with Paypal , drove the 5 miles to the store to pick up the waiting battery order , and were through with it ………….
Continuing the Winterising of the Ford F150 , our hearer core had given out some time ago , and since heat is not a factor in summer , we simply by-passed the heater for then , until a month ago. We purchased the heater , and considered the installation options . We decided to do it ourselves , knowing the Ford F150 heat core is notoriously tough to do . It is deep in the dash behind the cubby-hole , and requires major dismantling to get in and out of there . Major-Major.
We did it the Shortcut way . After the Cubby- hole was removed , we used a screw-driver , pliers , a UT knife, and a saw . The wires , and the main-brainy thing , we did not cut , but everything else was fair game . A rather quick installation , we must say , and the heat works fine ,looks fine too , looking down , though there is no directional control at all for the hot air , a rather minor glitch on an older truck …………..
And why are we driving a somewhat tired 18 year old truck for our main work Vehicle ? Well , let us just say it replaced the 1978 Ford F150 some years back . Fords are Tough , the 93′ somewhat resembles Uncle Jess’s truck in the ”Dukes of Hazard”. The truck is all white , somewhat dulled by age . Having a different color hood , or a door or so with different color would perhaps carry that idea too far .
My clientele seems to appreciate us not driving fancy new trucks , that seems to hold true throughout the South ,not to drive expensive work trucks. Many of the Yank Mennonites that have in the past immigrated South have done that , bought shiny monolith monster trucks that roar a lot and look expensive . A good many of them are now waiting on tables and punching time cards , come to think of it .