So two weeks ago my car wouldn’t start. I called AAA to have them tow it; the tow truck guy sprayed the battery terminals with some gunk which cleaned off the corrosion, and the car started right up. He told me I should clean them off with a wire brush.
I never really got around to that, but the problem was worse – Monday morning the car wouldn’t start again. At first I figured I just needed to clean off the terminals and connectors, so I attempted to do so. Turns out the corrosion had eaten cleanly through one of the wires where they connected to the positive terminal clamp, and half through the other.
I had AAA tow my car to the Ken Garff Honda dealership on University Parkway in Orem (it’s actually my dad’s car, so I take it where he tells me to take it). Yesterday afternoon they finally called me saying “The corrosion has eaten all the way down the positive wires, so we need to order a new engine wiring harness. Parts and labor will be $816.” Yes, eight hundred sixteen dollars.
Well I don’t have $816 lying around all over the place, so after conferring with my dad and with a friend, I had the car towed back to my apartment. The tow truck guy commented (when I related to him what the dealership had told me) “when we get to your apartment, let’s pop the hood and take a look.”
So we did. And he told me what to do.
I fixed it… for a total cost of $7.50, half an hour of travel time (in a neighbor’s car), and an hour or so to clean the terminals, put on the new positive terminal clamp, and put everything back where it goes. The car runs great. I still need to go buy an OEM negative battery cable (the generic ones aren’t even close to the same), but that shouldn’t run me more than $10, and the old one still works in the meantime.
They wanted to charge me $816 and replace things do not (at least not yet) need to be replaced.
No wonder people don’t like dealerships.