Doc1
Has No Life - Lives on TB
I restore/recondition lead-acid automotive batteries as a little sideline. Let me stress "little" in the equation; mainly I do it for myself since we have multiple vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles, tractors, etc.) and buying batteries for everything gets pricey. Occasionally I'll place an ad on Craigslist and sell a used battery or two, but this is infrequent. It depends on whether or not I have extras. I buy my batteries from a local scrapyard and have an arrangement where the owner will buy back the ones that aren't salvageable for slightly less than I paid for them. This works out majorly to my advantage.
Here's the "battery secret" in my title. A surprising percentage of batteries that wind up in the scrapyard are still good! That's right; I don't have to do anything more than recharge them. Understand that on the majority of these used batteries, I do testing, special charging and add chemical restorer, but as I said, some of them are good to go right from the scrapyard. I'll explain why this happens and hopefully save some of you money.
The main reason perfectly good batteries wind up in the scrapyards are because of dishonest service writers. Service writers are the guys you meet when you take your car or truck in for service. They are supposed to be advisors, but in reality they are salesmen and most of them work on commission. The more they can sell you, the more $$$ they make.
When people go to the shop complaining that their battery is going dead or won't start their vehicle, the service writer will bend over backwards to - at minimum - sell a new battery and alternator. Sometimes this is warranted, but often it's not. A lot of conditions can cause a poorly charging battery. A couple of common problems are dirty/corroded battery terminals or poor contact at the ground cable. Also, just because an alternator or regulator has failed does not necessarily mean that the battery is bad.
No matter. The service writer is almost always going to try to sell you a new alternator and battery. Once the sale is made, the old batteries (both good and bad) wind up on a pallet to be sold to the local scrap dealer. None of these people bother to actually test the batteries.
Once the reader understands this, it's not too hard to test your own alternator/battery system before taking your vehicle to a shop. First of all, clean the battery cable terminals and battery terminals. You can do this with a pocketknife, but a dedicated battery terminal cleaner only costs $3 to $5 at any auto parts store. Also be sure to clean the cable wire where it is attached to the terminal. The negative cable will bolt to the engine somewhere. That's the "ground" and you'll want to be sure that terminal is clean and it's mounting boss on the engine is also clean. You may still have battery or alternator problems, but you can never be sure unless all of these connections are clean.
A note of caution is in order here: A lot of new vehicles have computerized controls that have to be reset if the battery is disconnected. You can discover this with a quick 'net search, as well as instructions on resetting the system.
The next thing to do is start the vehicle and test the running voltage with a simple multimeter. Individual specs will vary a little, but by and large your electrical system should be reading at around 13.5 volts or a little higher when running. When stopped, the reading should be around 12.5 to 12.7 volts.
Lastly, you should have a battery charger and a battery tester with load testing function. Your charger doesn't have to be expensive and a serviceable battery/load tester can be had for $20 to $25.
If your battery and alternator passes its charging and load tests, you don't need to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 for a new battery, God only knows how much for a new alternator and your good battery won't need to wind up in a scrapyard!
Hope this helps.
Best
Doc
Here's the "battery secret" in my title. A surprising percentage of batteries that wind up in the scrapyard are still good! That's right; I don't have to do anything more than recharge them. Understand that on the majority of these used batteries, I do testing, special charging and add chemical restorer, but as I said, some of them are good to go right from the scrapyard. I'll explain why this happens and hopefully save some of you money.
The main reason perfectly good batteries wind up in the scrapyards are because of dishonest service writers. Service writers are the guys you meet when you take your car or truck in for service. They are supposed to be advisors, but in reality they are salesmen and most of them work on commission. The more they can sell you, the more $$$ they make.
When people go to the shop complaining that their battery is going dead or won't start their vehicle, the service writer will bend over backwards to - at minimum - sell a new battery and alternator. Sometimes this is warranted, but often it's not. A lot of conditions can cause a poorly charging battery. A couple of common problems are dirty/corroded battery terminals or poor contact at the ground cable. Also, just because an alternator or regulator has failed does not necessarily mean that the battery is bad.
No matter. The service writer is almost always going to try to sell you a new alternator and battery. Once the sale is made, the old batteries (both good and bad) wind up on a pallet to be sold to the local scrap dealer. None of these people bother to actually test the batteries.
Once the reader understands this, it's not too hard to test your own alternator/battery system before taking your vehicle to a shop. First of all, clean the battery cable terminals and battery terminals. You can do this with a pocketknife, but a dedicated battery terminal cleaner only costs $3 to $5 at any auto parts store. Also be sure to clean the cable wire where it is attached to the terminal. The negative cable will bolt to the engine somewhere. That's the "ground" and you'll want to be sure that terminal is clean and it's mounting boss on the engine is also clean. You may still have battery or alternator problems, but you can never be sure unless all of these connections are clean.
A note of caution is in order here: A lot of new vehicles have computerized controls that have to be reset if the battery is disconnected. You can discover this with a quick 'net search, as well as instructions on resetting the system.
The next thing to do is start the vehicle and test the running voltage with a simple multimeter. Individual specs will vary a little, but by and large your electrical system should be reading at around 13.5 volts or a little higher when running. When stopped, the reading should be around 12.5 to 12.7 volts.
Lastly, you should have a battery charger and a battery tester with load testing function. Your charger doesn't have to be expensive and a serviceable battery/load tester can be had for $20 to $25.
If your battery and alternator passes its charging and load tests, you don't need to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 for a new battery, God only knows how much for a new alternator and your good battery won't need to wind up in a scrapyard!
Hope this helps.
Best
Doc
