Ok, maybe i am full of crap... but i have been told by a lot of people,
(including my old boss from when i was making batteries for a summer at an
aerospace company in Palo Alto CA) that in really cold weather, if you run
your headlights for a minute or so it will help to warm up the battery so
it;ll give more juice when you turn it over.  Now this is against my
chemistry knowledge, because a battery is a spontaneous reaction and it
should get COLDER when you run it and the reverse- get warmer when you
charge it. (I know that for sure, becuase i have my name on a patent out
there about cold charging Ni-H batteries...)

Maybe it is because conductivity increase with increasing
temperature? Also, the rate of the rxn is temperature dependent?

Matthew Pollard             http://www.uidaho.edu/~poll7356
Dept. of Chemistry               http://www.chem.uidaho.edu
University of Idaho                   http://www.uidaho.edu

On Thu, 18 Jan 2001, Jay L Snyder wrote:

>  In cold weather i make
> it a habit of turning on my ignition for about 10 minutes before i fire
> her up.  THis also helps to warm up the battery so you'll have more juice
> for the starter.
>
>
> What are you talking about?  Do you sit on the battery to warm it up?
>