The Saturday after Christmas, I turned the key in a store parking lot in Southern Pines and the CR-V answered with a single click. Then nothing. The dash lights flickered like they were thinking about it. It was 29 degrees, we'd been inside about an hour returning a sweater and buying half-price wrapping paper, and Wes was standing at the passenger door with a bag in each hand.
He set the bags on the roof and said, "That's the battery." He was right, which is not always a comfort.
What happened next, and what it cost
Our jumper cables were in the car, where they live. The problem is that cables need a second car, and the lot was mostly empty that early. Wes's truck was at home, about 45 minutes away. Calling Tonya to drive up from Pembroke with cables felt like a lot to ask the weekend after Christmas.
We didn't have roadside assistance on our auto policy at the time. I'd always assumed we did, which is a lesson by itself. So I searched for a mobile jump service on my phone and called the first one that answered. A man in a pickup showed up about 40 minutes later, hooked up a jump pack, and the car started on the first try. That was $75, paid on the spot.
Wes didn't want to drive home on it and hope. A battery that dies in the cold once will do it again. So we drove straight to an auto parts store a couple of miles away. They tested the battery on their machine for free, and it failed badly, well under half of what it was rated to deliver on a cold start. A new one in the right size, with a three-year replacement warranty, was $189 including the core charge refund for the old one.
Wes installed it in the store parking lot in about fifteen minutes. He borrowed one tool from the counter and used the small wrench he keeps in the glove box. He also cleaned the cable ends with a wire brush while he was in there, since a little white crust had built up on the positive side.
- Mobile jump: $75
- New battery: $189
- Extra gas and a sausage biscuit while we waited: about $9
- Total: $273
None of it came out of the trip account, since it wasn't a trip. It came out of checking, the same place the tires and the AC repair came from this year.
Why it died with no warning
We don't know exactly how old that battery was. We've had the CR-V since 2020, and Wes thinks it might have been the one that came with the car. Either way, car batteries around here usually last somewhere in the three-to-five-year range. Heat is actually harder on them than cold. Our summers wear the battery down quietly, and the first hard cold morning is when you find out.
There were small signs looking back. The engine had sounded a little slow turning over on a couple of cold mornings in December. I noticed it and said nothing, because the car always started. That's the habit I'm breaking.
Why we test it every fall now
Most auto parts stores will test your battery for free, in the parking lot, in about two minutes. The tester tells you how much starting power the battery still has compared to what it's rated for. If it's getting weak, you buy a battery on a Tuesday afternoon at home instead of on a cold Saturday in a parking lot.
So it's on my calendar now: the first Saturday in October, I drive the CR-V to the parts store in Laurinburg and have it tested. Wes put the same thing on his Silverado's list. He also added a quick look at the battery terminals to his pre-trip check, the one on the card in our glove box.
The other thing this morning taught me is that I didn't really know what our auto policy covered. I'd have told you we had roadside assistance. We didn't. Next month I'm sitting down with the policy and our agent and pricing that out properly, because $75 for a jump in a parking lot made the decision feel a lot less theoretical.
January is our no-trip month anyway. It's a good time to fix the boring stuff.
