How to get your car to start quicker

[kiwi]

Clean and check the tightness of the battery terminals.

Geeze that was so easy

[rutter123]

yes indeed, a very neglected part they stretch over time and dont clamp down properly, personally i use marine type battery terminals which a mate got from his boat yard.

[docchevron]

personally i use marine type battery terminals which a mate got from his boat yard.

that.
The original lead clamps are shite.

[Melchior]

The clamp bolts on my BX are actually bent! They still clamp fine but I was a bit startled when I noticed it a few weeks ago whilst changing the battery.

[kiwi]

You can go a bit further and clean the connections and follow through to the earth point on the body. In rebuilding the 19TRS those things were all reinstalled and heck the differance is amazing. This car went from a pig to start to pretty much firing on first key turn.

[KevR]

personally i use marine type battery terminals which a mate got from his boat yard.

that.
The original lead clamps are shite.

Although, to be fair, both mine have their original clamps still doing the job 20-something years on - when they stretch a bit I just run a hacksaw through to widen the gap. Also got another pair of original BX leads fitted on one of the H van camper's batteries (it runs two batteries). Again, no problems with them when they're working right they make a nice, consistent connection over the whole surface area as they're soft enough to conform to the battery terminal properly - and you get less trouble with corrosion than you do with many other types of clamp. When they do stretch beyond usefulness I will indeed be swapping them for heavy duty tractor/boat versions though. At that point you can use the original leads to make a DIY anodizing set-up for aluminium!

[docchevron]

I have gold ones on mine, I rather like them, not enough to open the bonnet to look at them, but almost!