jazzpicker

A month or so ago I had to go to South Florida while my wife stayed at home in North Florida. One Sunday afternoon she recieved a call that her mother was sick and she loaded the Acura to head north to Georgia. As luck would have it, the battery in her 04 TL died.

After getting the car started with the help of Acura roadside assistance, she headed to the closest place open on Sunday Afternoon, WALMART.......
She was charged near $90 for a walmart battery and was sent on her way with another new problem, the check engine light was now on after the battery installation.

The next morning the car was in one of Acura dealerships in Central Georgia to check the engine light and nothing was found. That cost another $90.

When she got back to Tallahassee, she called the dealership to see if anything else needed to be done. Nothing was found nor nothing was mentioned about the size of the battery that was installed in the car. My wife did an outstanding job to take care of these problems in my absence and I appreciate her effort.

Tonight, I was going to install a new engine air filter and when I opened the hood the first thing I say was a HUGE multicolored walmart battery with a huge handle that looks like a John Deere battery crammed into the small TL battery tray minus the battery cover. The battery cover was left in the garage with a broken latch. The battery is so big that I'll have to remove it to install the air filter.

I do appreciate walmart's effort but I'm pissed that the wrong size battery was installed, the battery cover was broken , the engine cover scratched and I'm out $300 that it has cost me so far to do a battery install.

Tomorrow I'm headed to WM with all receipts in hand to see how much WalMArt really does care about "customer satisfication". I'll take the car to Proctor Acura on Monday and have a normal battery installed.

I understand it was an unusual episode and WM did get the car going but at a very high price and moderate damage to an otherwise mint car.

6MTUA5

iTrader: (2)

Damn sorry to hear this... idiots at Wal-Mart
Hopefully they'll take care of you and at least get the money back for that battery and try and get Proctor to cover the cost of new one if you're under warranty. Don't think you'll be able to get out of the tow service.

Good to see another guy from Tallahassee on here.
Me and a few other people are going to get together for a photoshoot soon if you want to bring one of the two TL's.

dnd2984

iTrader: (6)

does it add torque......Sorry to hear that but thats walmart...

AirJordan23922

sorry for the misfortune, good luck man

KJSmitty

Only during start-up....


Sure "torqued" Jazzpicker however.. :-)
(as would it had me)

Kudos to his wife though..
- My wife would have called me up and chewed me out for not "knowing" the battery was going bad.... Shew has become accustomed to me being "in-tune" with all of our vehicle maintenance needs...

LuvMyTSX

Stupid Walmart

DMZ

This is what happens when you have people making barely more than the minumum wage doing this kind of work.

jazzpicker

Does anyone know why a battery swap would make the check engine light come on?

The WM auto shop opens at 11am tomorrow and I'll be waiting. I suppose it will be an interesting encounter. A lifetime of owning cars gives a person lot's of experience at this sort of thing. After owning other brands of cars in the past, Acura has spoiled me. Our dealership really tries to help the customer. Now tomorrow I'll will be dealing with a Walmart manager. He'll have his hands full.

I really try to take care of the Acuras but it seems there is always someone waiting to screw things up.

DMZ

Walmart should have a book to lookup what battery type this car takes, Group 24F

Consumer Reports ratings:

subbuzz

John deere tl > ronjon tl. that sucks, i wonder how walmart/acura would have reacted if they f*cked his whole electrical system? This is just sad,hope all is ok.........

jazzpicker

Thanks DMZ for the consumer report battery rating you posted, that resolved the issue. I was wrong.....aaarrrggghhhh!!

The TL takes a 24F (battery size) and when I went to look at the Walmart battery, guess what, it was 24 F but a well endowed 24 F whth a big strap handle (I'm jealous!!) that has attachments on the sides that take up space in the TL battery compartment.

I measured both of my TL batteries and they are the same but because of the handle, the battery cover won't fit. Whoever installed the battery did a bad job with cable management, I straightened that out and now I have to go and buy a new battery cover. remove the battery handle and that should resolve the battery cover issue

As for why the check englne light activating afer the install, who knows, maybe the battery installer momentarily reversed the connections or it was a coincidence.

The most important thing is that the TL is runnning and with a little modification I'll have a new battery cover tomorrow and the check engine light is out without any codes.

If something goes wrong again on the weekend , I'll just rent a car and wait for Acura to open on Monday, it's a hell of a lot cheaper.

Damn, it's hard to admit error on my part!!!!! Oh well.....

ndabunka

Ah, check engine light comes on EVERY time a battery is disconnected. The error can be cleared out easily enough (In fact I think it may even be in the manual in the car in the section about battery replacement). AutoZone did mine and the guy even had a device to plug into the cigarette lighter while doing the exchange. I drove off and then noticed the error. I turned around in a parking lot, read a little and fiddled with the controls and everything was back to normal.

6MTUA5

iTrader: (2)

^^ Not true at all. The check engine light doesn't come on every time you disconnect the battery.


Wait-- just realized that was the 3G forum, so maybe it does

chill_dog

^^^ I've never had a CEL from disconnecting and then reconnecting the battery.

road_boy

iTrader: (1)

^^^^me neither

RJANACONDA

iTrader: (1)

nor me

blueracer17

Me either. I've disconnected it several times and never had a CEL.
eric

6MTUA5

iTrader: (2)

OK, good to know I was right

Razzi

you took a car that had a problem because the battery was changed, to an acura dealer. for 90 bucks they didnt even bother opening the hood?

SpicyMikey

21st century car mechanics. If they plug it in and the diagnostics computer says everything is working, then dam it, everything is working!

xen-cuts

Wal mart is one of the worst places that anyone can go to have anything done to their car. Even the oil filters are shitty there.

jcondon

I made the mistake of taking my GF car to Walmart yesterday for a battery. They didn't even have the damn thing in stock. Huge section on the shelf for it but, well not there.

Ended up at Autozone who tested the battery and alternator and found no problem.

Be-in my TL

I'm pretty sure disconnecting and reconnecting the battery gets rid of the CEL, temporarily. It tricks the system. It's how I got my brother's car through th DMV for a test. He had misfires, and we were afraid they wouldn' let us test for license for my mom if the car had a CEL on. It comes back on in a few days after the sensors find the error(s) =)

DMZ

You got that right.

In the store, all they sell are the garbage Frams and some super cheap noname I've never seen or heard of before. But I'll still buy my motor oil there as they're the cheapest.

One brand of oil filter to ALWAYS stay away from is Group7.

awaxx

Don't ever have any automotive work done at Walmart. My friend's daughter brought her brand new camry to walmart for a SIMPLE oil change. She drove off then after a while started hearing weird noises in the engine then it started smoking. Idiots forgot to put oil! WTF!!! Walmart ended up buying a new motor for a brand new car. They spent about $5000. Even if they paid for it, i'd still be pissed that they messed up my new car.

Fulani has a TL

iTrader: (1)

^^ My ex called me up few nights ago, she got her oil changed at wally world. Then She started driving and CEL came on, pulled over and called me up. My first suspicion was that they didnt put oil in it... She went back the next day, they claimed that there were two gaskets on the oil filter, the original one did not come out, so the oil was leaking out and caused the CEL.

Smart girl got everything in writing, so if any problem results in that walmart will pay for it.

and this was in an 02 TL...

Never take cars for service to walmart!!!

6MTUA5

iTrader: (2)