About six weeks ago, I took my sister to a doctor’s appointment at Boston’s Beth Israel hospital to check on how her fractured hip was healing. Because I didn’t want her to walk any further than necessary, I valet-parked the car. The attendant hopped into the E39, and immediately hopped back out, saying that he couldn’t drive a manual-transmission car. I don’t valet-park cars often, but I’ve learned that this isn’t unusual; sometimes they have to get the one valet who knows how to drive a stick. This time, apparently there wasn’t one, so instead, he simply pointed to the end of the curb directly in front of the hospital and said I could leave the there. I helped my sister out, got back in, drove the car maybe 50 feet, turned on the flashers, got back out, and handed the valet the key, as it was still needed for check-in and payment purposes.
When the appointment was over, we exited the hospital, and the car was right where I left it. However, I noticed that the flashers were off, which was curious, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. I got the key, paid the valet, helped my sister into the car, turned the key, and… nothing. Not a click, not a dashboard light. Completely dead.
I stepped out of the car, opened up the trunk (for which I had to use the key because everything was dead), and exposed the battery. Normally what I’d do is use the multimeter to check the voltage, and the 10 and/or 13mm wrenches to re-secure the battery clamps. I don’t drive any of the vintage cars further than around the block without bringing my road-trip toolbox, a multimeter, and a battery jump pack, but I had none of that in the E39. And, for some unknown reason, this car—the 2003 530i that’s been my daily for a decade—was missing its trunk-mounted toolkit when I bought it. So I had zero tools. After the first time the E39s alternator died and I needed a flatbed tow and realized I didn’t have the screw-in towing eye, I bought one and threw it onto the back floor. And after the rapidly-loudening whubba-whubba-WHUBBA-WHUBBA of a loose wheel announced impending disaster and I didn’t have a lug wrench, I bought one at a used tool shop and left it on the back floor as well. But neither a towing eye nor a lug wrench are particularly useful for charging system diagnostics and jury-rigs. I had made a mental note to get myself the proper trunk-lid-mounted tool kit, but we call them “mental notes” because we tend to forget about them.
Yup. Wasn’t there when I bought the car. I have no idea why.
So instead I had this. Nothing there to tighten battery clamps.
So here I was, faced with the indignity of having to call AAA and have them come to the front of Beth Israel hospital because some guy in a BMW has a dead battery.
I decided to give it five minutes first.
I twisted the battery clamps to check if they were loose. They appeared secure.
The “Blem Power” label is because Interstate sells blemished batteries at a discount. The cedar shingle is a shim because the clamp doesn’t keep the thing secure.
Then I looked closely at the battery, and saw that the date code was 10/16. So it’s 10 years old. I must’ve installed it a few months after I bought the car. Batteries usually don’t fail in such an utterly binary way as this (and leaving the flashers on for an hour shouldn’t kill it), but I supposed it was possible. In fact, this was beginning to feel like a repeat of when I sold Sharkie last fall and this same thing (a working battery suddenly going over the edge) happened.
Busted.
I gave it one more try and twisted both battery clamps hard. This time, the positive one grudgingly rotated slightly, and when it did, the flashers came on. Clearly some amount of corrosion had built up between the battery post and the inside of the clamp, and twisting it allowed it to make cleaner contact. I hopped in the car, twisted the key, and it started. I deadpanned to my smiling sister “Your brother’s Hack Mechanic image remains intact for another day.”
But clearly, three things needed to happen—the battery posts and clamps needed to be cleaned, the battery needed to be tested (and replaced before winter lest I tempt fate), and I needed to get a tool kit so my daily driver at least has the basics.
I did the first two things immediately on arriving home, and the battery tested out fine. The tool kit, though, took me some time to set in motion. I looked on eBay and found that empty tool trays could be had for about $30, tool rolls with a subset of tools were about $40, trays with incomplete tools were maybe $50 and up, and fully-populated trays were over $200 (all of these, obviously, used). And of course no one was advertising a kit that’s complete except for the towing eye and the lug-nut wrench that I already have. I rolled my eyes and kicked myself for not buying the tray and the tools I needed from Alonzo (“Big Al”) Taylor last year at The Vintage when I could’ve gotten them for the cost of a couple of margaritas.
Then I realized that I could just email Al and ask him. I don’t buy stuff remotely from him often, but when I do, he’s always responsive and his prices are very reasonable.
So I did. I said that I already had the towing eye and lug wrench, and to save on shipping costs, I could live without the collapsible orange safety triangle.
The way I like to do business on things like this is that if something is click-and-buy, I can make up my own mind whether to pay the asking price, but if you’re causing someone to do work on your behalf—in this case, search through a junkyard and populate a tool tray—when they quote you a shipped price, unless it’s way above what you expected it to be, you say “okay, great, thanks” and send them the money. To my delight, Al said “fifty bucks.” It arrived a few days later. It even had the orange folded safety triangle in it.
Cue The Cars’ “Just What I Needed.” And no I don’t care about the corrosion on the spark plug wrench handle.
My back issues are still sidelining me from any real wrenching, but I figured that I should certainly be able to install the tool tray so long as I took all the tools out of it first and reinserted them in small batches. I was delighted to find that the original flock-covered Phillips-head screws were still in place on the underside of the trunk lid. I installed the tray, retrieved the towing eye from the back floor, pulled the correct 17mm lug wrench from the box-o-lug-wrenches in the garage, and smiled at my handiwork that could at least allow me to tighten the battery clamps if this problem rears its head again.
This makes me happy.
And, if you look at the bottom of the photo above, you’ll see a battery jump pack. Yes I’ll definitely replace the battery before winter, but in the meantime, I may be thrifty, but I’m not stupid.
Thanks Al!
(A post that Al made on the Middle Atlantic BMW Classifieds Facebook group in 2025 says “I have a BMW dismantling business, Al Taylor’s Sports Cars, been doing it over 30 years. 1200 pre 1996 BMW’s parted dismantled. I do not have a web presence, not on FB if I can help it. I have three locations in NC, Milton NC near VIR, Whitakers NC right off Interstate95 and Winterville NC. Always have projects, race cars, and race car projects for sale. Latest cars being parted are 2002 540 6 spd, and 1999 Z3 2.8 5 spd. Still have several 2002s, e21 and Bavarias also [again, this was from 2025]. Email 324tdi@gmail.com”)
—Rob Siegel
I’m not a stickler for originality, but I love the fact that I didn’t have to go to the hardware store for something generic, and that the original hidden flocked screws are still there.
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Rob’s newly-expanded book The Best Of The Hack Mechanic™: 40 years of hacks, kluges, and assorted automotive mayhem, is available on Amazon here. His other seven books are available here on Amazon, or you can order personally-inscribed copies (including the new Best Of) from Rob’s website, www.robsiegel.com/books.
