Hello All...

If I don't drive for, say, 4 days, it's dead. I need to charge it with a trickle charger which can never get it above 50% charge. I was told this means there's something wrong with it because the charger mfgr says it should fully charge in only a few hours. I left it on for 12+ hours and never gets above 50%.

My extended warranty covers batteries, but apparently they require that it TESTS bad. The mechanic said it doesn't fail the tests so the warranty won't cover it. What the hell?

How long should a battery hold a charge if you don't drive? Temps here are in the 50s and 70s. What does it mean that it keeps dying? I only drive a few miles every week or so, but shouldn't the charge last a few weeks undriven, if it's a good battery??

Thanks

 

WOW! Your car just keeps on giving!

When you say " . . . never above 50% . . . ." what exactly do you mean?

I would drive the car to a local auto parts store and ask them to do a free charging system test, including a LOAD test on the battery.

The other issue to deal with after that is a low amp drain on the battery which can come from something as simple as a small light staying on to some kind of parasitic drain that can be difficult to resolve.

Charge the battery, do the load test and report back.

 

Depends, the last new battery I had was left for over 6 months. When I came to charge it, it was slow and wouldn't get a full charge, even after two days on trickle.

When I asked the supplier what the warranty was, he just told me to exercise it by plugging a lamp in to run it down completely, then charge and repeat this drain/charge a few times. After doing this it's never missed a beat. I used a spare H7 headlamp and socket with croc clips.

If it doesn't respond to the battery cpr, it might have a dry cell. Don't know if yours is sealed, the ones I have are. If that's the case, take it back for them to test if possible?

Your car benefits a good run once in a while, main agent tech's up and down the UK swear by it. Put a more miles on it each week, in a word, enjoy.

 

Hi SirJag,

When I check a car for symptoms like yours, I check the charging system, battery and parasitic drains. Assuming that your charging system is ok, you need to check for parasitic battery drains wether you battery is good or bad.

If the car has over 100 milliamps drain, it will lead to premature battery failure. Not just a having to be jump started now and again. It will reduce the normal service life of the battery every time it severely discharges. Less than 50 milliamps after all systems have gone onto "sleep" mode is desirable.

Your battery needs to be fully charged for some testers to give an accurate result. Other testers will take into account the state of charge when giving results. There are also different methods that testers of different types can use. Actually loading the battery with a realistic amp load is one way. Others do math and calculate the state of charge, battery life remaining, and reccomendation. I've seen both types give inaccurate results.

Did you get a printout from your mechanic? If so, see if it has the CCA rating that was entered into the tester matches what is printed on your battery. If the entry in the tester is wrong, the results are unreliable. The math won't be accurate.

How old is your battery and does the battery have the warranty rating printed on the battery? If you have a 5 year battery and it's 6 years old, I would replace it.

If you want to get the battery replaced under warranty. You need results showing a bad battery, as you stated. I see you're a Ca guy like me. If you're a AAA member, they have a service that will evaluate the battery as well as charging and starting. The machines they use are pretty modern and sophisticated and give a printout. You can also take it to Autozone to have it tested, but I'm not sure if they can give you a printout.

If you have one or more printouts showing that the battery is bad, the warranty company will have to have to explain why they won't replace the battery.

Determining the parasitic drain amperage is really important even if you put a new battery in your car.

Good luck,
Joe

 

My battery is worse and worse. I have change one, it was still slow and can't get a full charge.



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Thanks... I charged it for 12+ hours but the indicator on the charger never went above a 50% charge. (It shows how charged the battery is as it charges.)

I charged it as much as possible then had it tested and it tested fine. They did a computerized test and gave me a long print-out and all was fine. So...

Either something is wrong with the charger that it can charge the battery to 100% or...

The charger is fine and something is wrong with the battery. If there is a parasitic discharge, how the heck do you locate it?

Thanks to you and all the others who replied to my post on this issue.

SirJag

 

As I had mentioned, inappropriate drain on the battery can be as simple as a light staying on to a difficult to find issue. This car has at least three levels of electrical state: on, stand-by and off. Off doesn't really mean 'off' but low level stand-by. Testing by removing fuses can trigger something to move to the higher level drain of 'stand-by' and completely frustrating testing until it times back off.

Look for the simple first. Is you trunk light going off when closed?

 

My car sits for weeks