It’s because the van was sitting for 7 months without use. We jumped it again and I drove for about 30 minutes on the highway and it has worked OK after sitting overnight. Hopefully it’s good.
If the FatMax is good I’d like to get it because it also has an air compressor too.
In my experience, you get what you pay for.
I’ve never owned anything like that personally, but I have known 3 people that have something similar.
My girlfriend has just a jump-starter. She paid $100 for it. It works fine as long as the car just needs a minor boost. If the battery is stone-dead, it won’t do jack shit.
A friend of mine also has just the booster pack, and says the same thing.
My father had a booster pack/ air compressor. I guess it was better than nothing? He never used the booster pack, but did use the air compressor. That tiny oil-less compressor took about 45 minutes to get an automobile tire so he could drive it. Plus, after all of that non-stop stress on the compressor it burned out after one use.
I have one… Used to keep it in my old jetts because in it’s final days it would have major trouble starting in the winter, especially since it didn’t drive much.
It’s a very good thing… The charge seems to last forever, and can do multiple jumps on a single charge.
Like Giles mentions above, did you use yours more as an assists to jump a weak battery as opposed to one that was seriously drained?
I had a stand alone compressor like this that lasted a while. I would use it to top off a low tire though and not inflate one that was really flat. I probably paid about the same as this whole unit, so maybe my compressor was at least slightly better.
I used to own a dry cleaners, and we had a very expensive 3-headed air compressor that drove various parts of all the equipment. We used a lot of compressed air.
When that compressor lost compression, I had to order another one, but in the meantime, I naively ran down to Montgomery Wards and bought a big $400 oil-less air compressor, figuring that should do the trick. But I guess there’s a difference between a $400 unit, and a $1,500 unit. The oil-less unit ran and ran and ran. It never caught up with our needs, and by the end of 4 hours, the head actually began to melt just before it seized up and died.
All that to say: If you go with a cheap oil-less unit, don’t run it for long periods, The cylinder rings (if indeed it even uses cylinders or rings) are most likely plastic or teflon instead of metal, and won’t hold up under stress. Air compressors are great to have, but don’t expect much from a cheap one.
This is what I use instead:
Takes 5 minutes to fill it up at a gas station using an actual full-sized compressor. And you can then fill an automobile tire to full in about 3 minutes. Much faster than a tiny air compressor. Problem is that it’s also much larger. : )
Costco had this thing called PowerStation 2 or something like that. Might be PowerStation 3 or 4 now, who knows? Essentially a car battery in a case with a compressor, light, and of course jump cables. I’ve had it for several years and it’s always worked well. I don’t try to inflate totally flat tires with it but use it for topping off when I check air pressure. I have used it to jump start cars but not in a while. It was like sixty bucks or so and totally worth it.
Oh, don’t trust the air pressure gauges on these things, though. Get a good brass-fittings analog tire gauge like the ones from Gorilla or the like. Much easier and more accurate.
You can use a bicycle pump to top off a tire. I’ve inflated from nearly flat a few times, takes two or three sessions. It’s good for you :).
We have individual tools that we use, not an all-in-one. Each car has a tire compressor, they work fine, we’ve both had ours for ages. We have long jumper cables but I lost my jump battery pack a long time ago and need another one. If you’re in the route of having something like that in a used vehicle, put in a small toolkit as well, just in case. Need to yank the battery and go to the store? How are you going to remove it?
The only thing I see on there that makes me wary is that it’s an all-in-one. If it’s truly fantastic, it would show in the amazon reviews.
I will pass on it for now. There are a lot of reviews that are not good, but people with issues are more likely to review but it probably isn’t as bad as it seems.
For sure. It’s the drawback of Amazon reviews.
How feasible would it be for Mechanically Inclined Car People on this board to help me look through an estimate (and maybe a couple of shitty pictures of damage) and figure out what things I can skip (purely visual) vs. what’s definitely needed for safety? Got our estimate in for my girlfriend’s wrecked Yaris and, hooboy. . .
Mechanics, (not the guys who schedule at the service desk,) can usually help you separate structural/mechanical, operational, and convenience repairs.
Structural Mechanical:
Drive train and engine - are must fix. If you can’t drive it and it won’t operate reliably it’s not worth keeping. That also includes damage to the chassis of the car, severely affecting alignment.
Tires/Wheels/Brakes - also must fix, some shops will actually even try to prevent you from removing a car with severe issues to one of these.
Operational:
Windshield/mirrors/headlights/turn signals/windshield wipers, bumpers - Are mandatory in NC for inspection. You’re kind of screwed here, most damage is going to affect one or many of those.
Internal affecting driver - Seat, seat belt, steering, airbags are again something required or required to be operational in NC. If it’s a high quote I’m betting airbags are involved.
Convenience:
Dents/Paint unrelated to the above.
AC/Heat.
Radio or console functions.
Seating/belts outside of the driver (if NOT used by a passenger.)
So with those said, you mentioned a quote and a high price but not insurance. So my guess is the car is paid for and only covered with liability insurance (them) and not collision insurance (you,) or if collision a really high deductible.
If that’s the case I wish I had a better answer, but you either find a shop that will do it cheaper, or you trade-in/scrap the vehicle and purchase something else. As an example, if the car is only worth 4-5K or less and the damage completely overruns that, aka totals it, then it makes little sense to put that much into it for repair. Move on from it. A small car payment on a cheap used car is easier to handle than an out-of-pocket for a large repair bill that you will never get a return on.
Armando it may be worth talking to repair shops to see if they will allow a repayment plan. I’ve never done that and have no idea if it is an option.
Skipper:
Seriously, thanks.
The estimate includes significant work to repair the mounting brackets of the radiator, the A/C condenser itself, the low horn, one or both headlights (having trouble reading that part), and obviously several panels/the bumper, and maybe something to do with steering (another friend reading over it saw that; I had missed it).
So, total right now is ballpark $4500, but I’ve asked em to shave off unnecessary paint, look at used parts for panels/condenser, etc.
Cuz the vehicle’s a 95K 10-year-old base model 2WD Yaris that, even if it weren’t for the moderate hail damage to the roof panel, is only worth about. . . $4000.
… at best :(
Honestly—and I say this as someone who is strongly inclined to repair rather than replace—the “least worst” option might well be to take a deep breath and write it off. Lifehacker has an article that might be helpful here.
On the brighter side, it sounds like y’all have some money in the bank, so at least you have the option to pay off the remainder of the (presumably expensive) loan, and put that motherfucker behind you.
Given that a new Yaris, if you can find one, is like $13k new for the base model, yeah, putting over four large into this one seems counterproductive.
There’s definitely some element of sunk cost fallacy here. As I outlined in the “What’s Happened To You” thread, when she bought it, her credit was so bad she couldn’t get a loan at all, so she leased it for 5 years. . . then finally got a loan for the remaining value of the used vehicle at the end of the Lease, and even that was 4 years ago. At this point she’s easily dropped $20k + probably a quarter to a third of that in repairs and upkeep into a $15k car over the course of 9 years.
Ouch. I feel for you. Cars are such necessities that we get stuck in situations like this. I hope you can get it fixed for something approaching reasonable, then.
Seriously, if you have any other choice at all, don’t pour any more money into that Yaris. Its just a really bad investment.
This sounds a lot like my girlfriend as well. Around 10 years ago she when through a bad patch in life and got bad advice at the time and declared bankruptcy after some medical bills. So when we first started dating she was driving an 18 year old car that she was repeatedly putting about 1500-2000 into a year just to keep it going. When I talked to her about something new, “but I have bad credit due to my bankruptcy, I’m screwed getting a loan.” Then three things broke on the car at once.
She’s now she’s driving a much more modern vehicle after I helped her shopping for a used vehicle. There is an enormous amount of willpower that holds people to not having a car payment. And yet when the math comes in, sometimes it isn’t as bad as you would think.
Good luck to you both, Armando. I know that’s a ton of stress on you both right now. You’ll get through it. Talk to as many car people and mechanics as you can. Be up front. “We’re in the following situation, can you help?”