Total eclipse of the spark
Ugh. I suppose it was only a matter of time before my hard working battery decided it was well and truly sick of my antics and threw up the white flag of defeat. It was just annoying that it decided to die in an area where finding a replacement would be a task. Especially when I was already late for work to begin with...
It was outside the local library down the road from work - I'd just dropped off some books, jumped back in the car and brrrr...rrrr...rrrrrrrrrrr oh no.
The first thought is 'crap, what did I leave on?' but not even the headlights were on the for the sub five minutes I ducked into the library. So I prayed to Mechanius, the god of autos and tried again.
Brrrrrr..rrr..r...r............zzzzz
The same battery that had jump started so many cars with batteries twice it's size had cranked it's last crank.
Now I kind of knew that it was on the way out. I've never replaced it in the years I've owned the mean machine (3) and over the weekend I managed to kill it at a 7-11 leaving the radio and air conditioner on for the wife and kids while I walked in to pay for fuel. I had to hike back to my house, grab the wife's car and use that to get the wagon fired up again. This time with her car a good 33km away I figured it was high time to get a new one. So the hike down the road to the nearest Supercheap Auto began. (Luckily it died early in the arvo and not after I finished night shift..)
Roughly 1KM later and I discover that the place I frequent for fuses, fuel filters and the like is now closed. Permanently. It's been boarded up, drowned in white paint and completely empty. When the hell did this happen?
Like this, but drowned in white paint.
Luckily there was a Repco around the corner who had every battery size and shape under the sun, save for mine. "What's it going into mate?"
"A 2000 Nissan Stagea."
I get the first confused look of the day. While he doesn't have one that matches, he directs me to the auto electrician across the road. So I walk in and explain what I'm looking for.
"Yeah we should have one that fits. What's it going into?"
"A 2000 Nissan Stagea."
Confused look of the day number two.
"Er...the station wagon version of a Nissan Skyline?"
That was a big help as he'd worked on plenty of Skylines in his time and fished out one that fit.
Now it was just the fun job of getting it back to the car, back the 1km way we came.
Want to work on your fitness and generate up an incredible sweat at the same time? Take a battery for a walk..
The next problem came when I went to install it. I'll just loosen up the battery clamp and we're on our way....
...wait, where the hell has my hand 10mm ratcheting spanner gone now?
Turns out it's at home after I cleaned the car up a couple of weeks. I've got a breaker bar and a pair of tyre irons in the back but no shifters. I suppose I could smack it with the breaker bar to attempt to loosen it...but sanity prevails and I walk across the road to the world's most useless 7/11.
(It proved how useless it was when I had a flat months and walked in to buy a tyre iron (which is why I have a couple in the back now) and only got a blank look in reply.)
This time I figured they'd have a small shifter for sale. But no, nothing that useful. So behold, the world's most useless multi-tool for the low price of just $17.95.
I don't think I'm going to use any of these options..
Can't wait to file my nails with this thing!
While we're unscrewing the clamp, it's time for an important lesson. It's a lot easier to put everything back if you don't take the nuts right off the clamp hooks. Put the new battery in, feed the hooks into the holes and tighten it down again. Easy.
Of course you need to make sure you've put the right leads on the right poles but if you remember the red cover is for the positive and black for negative, you can't go too wrong.
Car started up and I spent the first ten minutes of work washing engine grime off my hands. Lovely.
Help! My Stagea battery is dying! What am I looking for in a replacement?
A recent post on the Nissan Stagea Owners and Enthusiasts Group asked the same question and for a 2000 Series 2 C34 (like the one I drive) you're looking for is a NS60, Japanese small pole, right hand earthed. 480cca.
Also a N70T fits but apparently it's snug height wise.
If you have money to spare, an Optima Yellowtop D34 ([easyazon_link identifier="B000AMDDBQ" locale="US" tag="theworsdjever-20"]Amazon link here[/easyazon_link]) really does the trick.
The one I changed was a Lion Black 330CCA it's worked well for the last three years I've had it (no idea how longer the previous owner had it in there for)
The one I ended up with is a Supercharge Silver Plus 330CCA which I picked up for $110 at the local auto electrician. Working well so far.
Got another Nissan Stagea battery that works well? Let us know!
Let's hope that's the last thing that breaks down for a while..
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