PREP A little battery secret

[ChicagoMan74]

Used to be an Interstate man...then DieHard. At some point, both brands went to crap IMO. (batteries lasting <3 years.)

Now, believe it or not, I've been having really luck with the Walmart brand "Everstart?"

Got one in both vehicles one is 4 y/o and one is 5.

 

[ainitfunny]

THANKS EVERYONE!
ALWAYS learning here.

 

[Bones]

Used to be an Interstate man...then DieHard. At some point, both brands went to crap IMO. (batteries lasting <3 years.)

Now, believe it or not, I've been having really luck with the Walmart brand "Everstart?"

Got one in both vehicles one is 4 y/o and one is 5.

Both brands, Interstate and Sears Diehard are primarily manufactured by Johnson Controls in Mexican battery plants.

Both, however, will fill in holes in inventory with other brands, including Stryten (formerly Exide).

Walmart, I believe, is now primarily supplied by East Penn/Deka products. East Penn does produce a better quality battery than either JCI or Stryten...by a long way.

The degradation of battery quality coincides with the change of the battery grids moving away from individually cast grids to an expanded metal type grid roll formed from a strip of lead. Expanded grids are far less durable, and we knew it when we began doing it that way in the mid to late 1990s.

 

[AlfaMan]

When I was selling used car parts, the salvage yard was a gold mine for new parts.

I could find brand new or reman'd alt's and starters quite frequently.
(What helped was that I was in a big city so the salvage yard was always stocked up.)

But you need to know how to examine them to see if they are any good.

For most people, it's best to take them to an autoparts store to get them tested.

That salvage yard always had a stock of batteries too.

Great tips on the batteries! Batteries are ridiculously expensive these days. Replacements on new vehicles cost a bundle; with today's cars batteries and alternators work harder than ever.

Great tips on junk yards too, Rob.

I put our 98 Blazer (Angus the awesome Blazer back on the road with a used transmission. The trans had been remanufactured 3 months before I bought it; so we ended up with a 3000 buck reman trans for $ 450 bucks (bought a 6 month extended warranty for 50 bucks more). Put the vehicle on the road rather than scrapping it; the wife has a winter snow car now
Used parts salvage yards are literally a gold mine as you mention; you can always find hard or impossible to find parts there for next to nothing. Especially if you drive an oddball or low production vehicle-like our 2004 Suzuki Vitara. 4800 were made in 2004, maybe 1000 or less still on the road. The Chevrolet Tracker is a clone of the Vitara, but they weren't exactly volume production either. People break them, don't want to fix them and sell them to the junkyard. Seen only one Vitara show up in a local junkyard but 3 Trackers.
Hard to find parts (like the 4wd air pump and actuators) cost stupid money if you can find one-yet a good used one at the junkyard costs maybe 10 bucks (rather than 600 for a reman unit). If I find a vehicle in a junkyard I go and yank parts off it. Not because I necessarily need them; but because they will become more scarce in the future and spares are always a good thing.

In a poop hits the propellers situation, those spares might make the difference between walking and riding.

 

[AlfaMan]

"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."

I can attest to this! My daughter gave me a 2013 Chevy Sonic. One morning the battery was dead. We went off to some place and bought a new one. Hubby hooked it up- works fine. EXCEPT the odometer is no longer visible. I'm sure it works, because I will get a message that the oil needs to be changed (every few thousand miles), but there's no visible odometer. We were later told that this car- and others- have to be hooked up to some other sort of battery when the battery is replaced. Of course, we had no idea. Only Chevy I've ever owned. I've lived with it because mechanics we know don't know how to reset it. No one's ever heard of something like this! And I'm sure the dealer would want a fortune to say "ooga booga pretty please shazam" and touch the gadget on the turn signal thing in the right order.

No odometer? That's an odd failure. There must be a reset process in there somewhere. Perhaps plug in a code reader and see if any codes pop up? There might be a P code (powertrain code) in there that could be reset to get it working again. Your maintenance reminder seems to be working so the instrument cluster is getting mileage inputs. It's possible there is a fault with the instrument cluster?

Maybe a P0014 code? Seen similar things happen on some other vehicles (Toyota Yaris, Kia Rio etc). Might be able to reset the code and get your odometer back.

 

[Wolfcreek Farm]

Owner has several batteries in a variety of equipment.

He likes batteries with the old fashioned "fill caps." One apparently can keep better track of battery charge by use of a hydrometer. A dead/shorted cell becomes immediately apparent with a hydrometer.

He DOESN'T like the AGM style "maintenance free" batteries. These are possibly more "durable" than the older style, but you can't tell if there is a dead/shorted cell.

Owner says a typical vehicle battery life is "at least 7 years." He owned a VW Diesel for many years. In that time he had three batteries. One the original which went 7 years. No. 2 an "aftermarket replacement" bought at Autozone and seemingly of the same ampere-hour capacity as the VW battery. That battery only lasted a year. No. 3 another VW battery which actually was cheaper than the Autozone battery - and brought the VW up to the point where it was sold to a VW dealer.

So it pays to get your batteries from the place you bought your car. Especially for batteries of "near special application" such as a VW TDI or a Prius.

Dobbin

I agree with the use of a hydrometer to test your battery......also...if the liquid level in the battery is low...I use 3% hydrogen peroxide from Wally World to bring it up to required level.

 

[Wolfcreek Farm]

Used to be an Interstate man...then DieHard. At some point, both brands went to crap IMO. (batteries lasting <3 years.)

Now, believe it or not, I've been having really luck with the Walmart brand "Everstart?"

Got one in both vehicles one is 4 y/o and one is 5.

Everstarts are good........also...Rural King's batteries are made by Exide...they are excellent too

 

[Hermantribe]

No odometer? That's an odd failure. There must be a reset process in there somewhere. Perhaps plug in a code reader and see if any codes pop up? There might be a P code (powertrain code) in there that could be reset to get it working again. Your maintenance reminder seems to be working so the instrument cluster is getting mileage inputs. It's possible there is a fault with the instrument cluster?

Maybe a P0014 code? Seen similar things happen on some other vehicles (Toyota Yaris, Kia Rio etc). Might be able to reset the code and get your odometer back.

I'm positive you're right. I've tried 2 code readers (well, one was the mechanic's not mine) and nothing came up. I'm going to take it to the dealer soon because I'm tired of it. Nobody I've talked with has ever heard of this problem. Thanks !

 

[Hermantribe]

Don’t know if it will work on newer vehicles but a few years ago all it took was a 9 volt battery hooked to a cigarette lighter plug to keep the electronics working.

I'll keep that in mind- thank! I knew there had to be a way

 

[Milkweed Host]

I've had tractor batteries last for 10-15 years without any issues.
If a tractor won't start in the machine shed, it's not the end of the world
and I'm not stranded in some parking lot away from home.

A rule of thumb on battery life is, five to seven years, if that.
I will automatically replace vehicle batteries at around five years.
I'm only interested in using the most reliable portion of the battery life
in a vehicle that I leave home with. Also, this way, I get to choose the
purchase of a battery when it's on sale.

I've given two vehicle batteries to a co-worker at the bus barn who is also
a farmer. Each time, he told me that there was nothing wrong with the battery.
I respond that I know, but don't want to deal with the end of life issues on batteries.

Over time, car batteries take lots of abuse from both the drivers and the road surface.

I carry jumper cables in both vehicles and will assist others when the need arises.

Remember the old days of manual transmissions and a dead car battery?
I've done that solo.

 

[Doc1]

Had a 2 yr oldAMS battery to go “bad” on by 2013 Ford Edge.. $225.

thBattery store told me that the modern cars with all the electronic upgrades wear out the batteries faster. He told me that if I leave my car and lock it that it takes between 10 and 15 minutes for all the electronics to slowly turn themselves off .

if you leave the car and don’t lock it it will take up to an hour for all of the electronics to turn off. If you park in your garage and don’t lock it and leave your electronic Key fob in the cupholder it could take several hours or never for all the electronics to wind down.

As I drive for both Uber and as a merchandiser from store to store my car is constantly being turned on turned off turned on turned off etc. he said what I needed to do was once a month put a trickle charge for 24 to 48 hours on my car on a day off and that would extend the life of the battery

I think that battery trickle chargers are an essential part of maintaining battery health. This is especially true in winter. The trickle charges help to mitigate the sulphation that occurs during the charge/discharge cycles.

Trickle chargers are very inexpensive, running around twenty bucks online.

Best
Doc

 

[AlfaMan]

I'm positive you're right. I've tried 2 code readers (well, one was the mechanic's not mine) and nothing came up. I'm going to take it to the dealer soon because I'm tired of it. Nobody I've talked with has ever heard of this problem. Thanks !

The disappearing odometer problem isn't a large issue with the Sonics, but it has been documented. I'm betting there is a recall out there for it.

 

[SmithJ]

@AlfaMan @Doc1

So what should you fill your 12 volt battery with - distilled water or hydrogen peroxide 3%?

 

[Doc1]

@AlfaMan @Doc1

So what should you fill your 12 volt battery with - distilled water or hydrogen peroxide 3%?

SmithJ, you need a hydrometer to assess the condition of your battery's electrolyte. I'm not going to explain their use here, as there are tons of vids out there on the subject. I will note that changing your electrolyte with fresh acid - without doing anything else - almost never works. I've seen other people mention hydrogen peroxide in this thread, but I don't have any experience with that. I use a magnesium sulfate solution as part of my reconditioning regime if it seems to be warranted.

Note that you really, really need to able to access the battery's individual cells to be able to gauge its potential for reconditioning. Without that ability, such as in completely sealed batteries, you are at least partially flying in the dark.

Some supposedly-sealed batteries actually have small, removable caps under the decal on the top. Others don't. I greatly prefer those with the caps, but have saved batteries without them in the past by using the 200 amp intermittent charging method I described earlier in the thread.

There is no need - or point to - filling individual battery cells with anything other than distilled water unless they show proof of being bad. Then only partially fill the bad cell with restoration chemicals or additional acid. Usually a battery never needs new acid, but I have encountered batteries where, apparently, the (clueless) previous owner emptied all the acid and just refilled it with water!

There are three ways of assessing an individual battery cell. You can test the voltage of the cell with a common multimeter, you can test the specific gravity of a single cell with a hydrometer and, using my 200 amp charging method, you can see which cells are failing to bubble or are only bubbling weakly.

In my experience, only adding chemicals or only using an electronic desulphater is of limited utility. I'm not saying these things aren't worth doing, but only that they're rarely solutions by themselves.

Hope this helps.

Best
Doc

 

[SmithJ]

SmithJ, you need a hydrometer to assess the condition of your battery's electrolyte. I'm not going to explain their use here, as there are tons of vids out there on the subject. I will note that changing your electrolyte with fresh acid - without doing anything else - almost never works. I've seen other people mention hydrogen peroxide in this thread, but I don't have any experience with that. I use a magnesium sulfate solution as part of my reconditioning regime if it seems to be warranted.

Note that you really, really need to able to access the battery's individual cells to be able to gauge its potential for reconditioning. Without that ability, such as in completely sealed batteries, you are at least partially flying in the dark.

Some supposedly-sealed batteries actually have small, removable caps under the decal on the top. Others don't. I greatly prefer those with the caps, but have saved batteries without them in the past by using the 200 amp intermittent charging method I described earlier in the thread.

There is no need - or point to - filling individual battery cells with anything other than distilled water unless they show proof of being bad. Then only partially fill the bad cell with restoration chemicals or additional acid. Usually a battery never needs new acid, but I have encountered batteries where, apparently, the (clueless) previous owner emptied all the acid and just refilled it with water!

There are three ways of assessing an individual battery cell. You can test the voltage of the cell with a common multimeter, you can test the specific gravity of a single cell with a hydrometer and, using my 200 amp charging method, you can see which cells are failing to bubble or are only bubbling weakly.

In my experience, only adding chemicals or only using an electronic desulphater is of limited utility. I'm not saying these things aren't worth doing, but only that they're rarely solutions by themselves.

Hope this helps.

Best
Doc

Thanks Doc. It does help. I’ve no experience with using hydrogen peroxide (so that’s why I asked) I don’t know that I’ve ever even seen it mentioned before now.

 

[Coulter]

How long should I charge a dead (but good) battery without the 200 amp ability?