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Does anyone have X types with batteries 2+ years old?
My battery is nearly 2 years old and it failed Thursday. Won’t hold a charge. This is my second X type and they both do the same thing. First X type had stock radio system, second has an Alpine ILX-107 Applecarplay, but no other AM Items..... Current car has new OEM cables that where replaced the day I got the car with 50k miles back in 2017.
Full disclosure, my batteries never have the opportunity to fully charge. My daily routine is to drive the car a few feet to the gym which is literally behind my place, then 1 mile to work in and 1 mile back. Everything is small local 1 or 2 mile trips. Weekends when I go out I am usually Ubering’ . Failure happens when after this pattern of short trips, I have to pick someone up at the airport or go to the beach about 30 miles away, and at this point batteries will fail. It’s Like after a life of not being fully charged they can’t handle suddenly going on a big trip and being fully charged.....I guess all this is normal.
Thing that throws me of a little, is that my grandma, for example, also takes short trips in her car to Costco, her bakery and such. Her battery is 3 years old. I know others who also take mostly short trips and have 4 year old batteries.....
Why is it that that the batteries I need my X types can only handle a couple of years of my driving habits?
Spike, you are going to hear something that is going to be contradictory to what I normally say. So, here it goes.
First off, what is happening is your batteries are developing a "memory". So, what happens is after long periods of not getting fully charged, the battery learns what part of the battery can charge and discharge fast. This is what allows you to drive the car every day and not have issues. But, the down side to this is when you do something different, it messes up that memory and can have detrimental effects. In short, you have scrambled its brain.
This is where I am going against what I normally tell people when it comes to batteries. For you, you may want to look at what is referred to as a deep cycle battery. This type of battery is going to handle not being at 100% charge better. The downside to this style of battery is that you will periodically (every 3 months or so). will need to turn on the car and say play the stereo for a few hours (say as you are waxing the car) and completely discharge the battery. Take it to the point that the battery will not start the car. You can then put the battery on a charger and get it back to 100%. Doing this should get you may more than 2 years out of a battery. The big downside to this is that deep cycle batteries tend to be a bit more expensive since the internals are built a little heavier. But, you can pay say $100 every 2 years for standard batteries or pay $150 for a deep cycle that should last you 5-6 years easy.
Option 2 is to get what is referred to as a battery maintainer. These are really meant for cars that only get driven say once a month. But, in your case, it is going to do the same thing. What it does is keeps the battery on a trickle charge (I am simplifying it, but this will give you the idea) and what happens is it checks out the battery and if it is not at 100%, it will slowly charge it back up. the down side to this is that you have to plug in the car say every other day to let the battery maintainer do its job. Then you just have to remember to unplug the car before you drive away.
Option 3 is to get a solar battery charger. You will normally find these at say outdoor stores and whatnot. They are really meant to keep on a boat and keep deep cycle batteries at 100% charge while a boat is not in use. But, in your case, you are going to plug it into your cig lighter (something that has power all the time) and let the sun top up your battery between drives. Then all you have to do is pull it down before you get going down the road. On a side note, solar panels do not work if you just toss them on your dash, inside the car. There is a protective film in the windshield that will make a solar panel just about worthless. So, the panel will have to sit on the outside of the car. Would you have to install it every time you drive the car. No. You should be fine to say park the car and work and let the solar panel do what it needs while you are at work and this will also keep it in a place that a lot of people are not going to get any crazy ideas. You can try doing it in your driveway, but you may find that there won't be enough sunlight hours to get the battery back to 100%.
My X Type battery date code is 2014.
The S Type is 2012
The X300 is 2011.
And there are others that are older.
ALL my cars have a battery minder/tender loom attached permanently, and sit on those minders mostly.
The current DD, the X Type, goes on charge every Saturday night, no exceptions, and all my DD cars have followed that routine since 1968, my Dad was a good teacher.
Car battery purchases in this household is LOW by any standards.
Spike, you are going to hear something that is going to be contradictory to what I normally say. So, here it goes.
First off, what is happening is your batteries are developing a "memory". So, what happens is after long periods of not getting fully charged, the battery learns what part of the battery can charge and discharge fast. This is what allows you to drive the car every day and not have issues. But, the down side to this is when you do something different, it messes up that memory and can have detrimental effects. In short, you have scrambled its brain.
This is where I am going against what I normally tell people when it comes to batteries. For you, you may want to look at what is referred to as a deep cycle battery. This type of battery is going to handle not being at 100% charge better. The downside to this style of battery is that you will periodically (every 3 months or so). will need to turn on the car and say play the stereo for a few hours (say as you are waxing the car) and completely discharge the battery. Take it to the point that the battery will not start the car. You can then put the battery on a charger and get it back to 100%. Doing this should get you may more than 2 years out of a battery. The big downside to this is that deep cycle batteries tend to be a bit more expensive since the internals are built a little heavier. But, you can pay say $100 every 2 years for standard batteries or pay $150 for a deep cycle that should last you 5-6 years easy.
Option 2 is to get what is referred to as a battery maintainer. These are really meant for cars that only get driven say once a month. But, in your case, it is going to do the same thing. What it does is keeps the battery on a trickle charge (I am simplifying it, but this will give you the idea) and what happens is it checks out the battery and if it is not at 100%, it will slowly charge it back up. the down side to this is that you have to plug in the car say every other day to let the battery maintainer do its job. Then you just have to remember to unplug the car before you drive away.
Option 3 is to get a solar battery charger. You will normally find these at say outdoor stores and whatnot. They are really meant to keep on a boat and keep deep cycle batteries at 100% charge while a boat is not in use. But, in your case, you are going to plug it into your cig lighter (something that has power all the time) and let the sun top up your battery between drives. Then all you have to do is pull it down before you get going down the road. On a side note, solar panels do not work if you just toss them on your dash, inside the car. There is a protective film in the windshield that will make a solar panel just about worthless. So, the panel will have to sit on the outside of the car. Would you have to install it every time you drive the car. No. You should be fine to say park the car and work and let the solar panel do what it needs while you are at work and this will also keep it in a place that a lot of people are not going to get any crazy ideas. You can try doing it in your driveway, but you may find that there won't be enough sunlight hours to get the battery back to 100%.
Thanks Chris
The failed battery (and it’s identical replacement) are supposed to be the “deep cycle” type. I have to admit I have never ran it flat and recharged as you suggested in #1. The battery is more expensive and does have a 60 month warranty.
So the solution to maintain this battery longer would be to just let it run totally flat once every 3 months? I guess that’s do-able.
My X Type battery date code is 2014.
The S Type is 2012
The X300 is 2011.
And there are others that are older.
ALL my cars have a battery minder/tender loom attached permanently, and sit on those minders mostly.
The current DD, the X Type, goes on charge every Saturday night, no exceptions, and all my DD cars have followed that routine since 1968, my Dad was a good teacher.
Car battery purchases in this household is LOW by any standards.
Grant,
Thanks for your reply. Only problem with this, is that the garage houses the E type and the XJS convertibles, (and does not have any electric outlets anyway). The X type sleeps outside.
So while I know this is probably a ridiculous question, can I buy a tender that does not require to be plugged into an outlet? I am looking at some online and am not exactly sure how they work.
@Thermo, the "always live" cigar lighter wouldn't work on my X as it is only live with the key on.
@Spike = no, converts ac to dc voltage
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Get a bigger shed and attach the power is one option.
Solar battery tenders do work, but require the sun. Daughter has one Velcro attached to the rear parcel shelf of her XJ40, and hard wired to the boot battery. Car sits out in the Hospital carpark mostly, and I think??? her battery is 10 years old.
Your short stop start are the killer, no matter what car or battery.
Get a bigger shed and attach the power is one option.
Solar battery tenders do work, but require the sun. Daughter has one Velcro attached to the rear parcel shelf of her XJ40, and hard wired to the boot battery. Car sits out in the Hospital carpark mostly, and I think??? her battery is 10 years old.
Your short stop start are the killer, no matter what car or battery.
Sounds like the solar battery tender is the ticket here.
Now I need to know, realistically, how often I should hook up the battery tender to the car. I imagine once a a couple of weeks in my daily driver X type should suffice.
What about my other cars that are also driven short distances, but only driven once a week? Maybe once a month?
Your call, and I do understand the electrcikery restrictions.
But mine all have the minders attached 24/7. Wife's S Type is unplugged by her to go somewhere, and re-plugged on return, she is that clever, and that car traveled 1200kms last year in total. Had oil changes at 6 months, and basically no kms traveled.
Minders are cheap, batteries aint. Even getting the power attached to storage shed may be cheaper than a couple of batteries, AND the frustration involved.
Your call, and I do understand the electrcikery restrictions.
But mine all have the minders attached 24/7. Wife's S Type is unplugged by her to go somewhere, and re-plugged on return, she is that clever, and that car traveled 1200kms last year in total. Had oil changes at 6 months, and basically no kms traveled.
Minders are cheap, batteries aint. Even getting the power attached to storage shed may be cheaper than a couple of batteries, AND the frustration involved.
Well, the solar minded I am looking at is not terribly cheap, but given I have 3 cars with the same driving patterns, it’s probably a good one time investment
Yeah only requirement is that I do not want to have to go in and out of my trunk of bonnets and having to attach whatever hardware is necessary to the batteries. I would like something I can leave there neatly tucked away, and just plug in when ready.
I went ahead and bought an Optima 400 charger. I still have the problem of no electric source in my garage, and I was wondering if something (solar generator) like what Dell suggested may in fact work.
Worst case scenario I have to take the batteries out once a month from all the cars and charge them, but I would prefer to be able to charge them in the garage. Specially for the cars that sleep there.
06-03-2019, 07:47 PM
Does anyone have X types with batteries 2+ years old?
