Car battery

[Van Chocstraw]

How long are they supposed to last? My car battery is 9 years old. My truck battery is 6 years old.

[Larry Fishel]

What brand are these? I need to get those next time...

[Jeff The Drunk]

There is no set number of years a battery lasts. Too many variables. You'll get many different opinions however. Mine would be that your average quality battery SHOULD last you 5 years. If you would rather be safe than sorry replace it every 5. The battery in my Chevy Trail Blazer lasted 4 years but there was a recall on them. Chevy would pay for the battery but you had to pay the 1 hour minimum labor charge or

90 bucks at the dealer. I said F that, went to Autozone and bought one if their batteries. It lasted 1 year. They checked the charging system, passed with flying colors, replaced the battery free of charge. Well that battery lasted 1 year too. Trip back to Autozone, re-test the charging system, passed with flying colors, replaced the battery free of charge. This was a year ago and so far this one is holding up. It does have poor performance when its cold. When its in the single digits I put a floater charge on it overnight.

The Autozone in my 96 Honda Accord is around 9 or 10 years old now. Still going strong. The 300 cranking amp battery in my John Deere tractor is 10.5 years old and just now this year needs replacing.

So there really is no pattern in the longevity of lead-acid batteries. Well at least none that I can discern other than not deep cycling the charge unless you have a deep cycle battery like those made for marine products. And not over or under charging but those are both no-brainers.

[Van Chocstraw]

The 9 year old one is and Enertec made in Mexico for VW and the 6 year old one is a Nissan.

[Gordon Shumway]

They are both living on borrowed time, especially the 9 year old. Five years is about the life you can expect to get reliable service from an automotive battery. Anything beyond that you un the risk of being stranded in the worst place at the worst time.

[Jules Richardson]

13 years on the one in my wife's Toyota now (coming up on 200k miles, car used daily, northern climate so harder cranking in winter, but the cold probably helps too - heat seems to be a real battery killer).

cheers

Jules

[salty]

Even a battery that is still working after that long will have greatly reduced capacity.

A battery that seems to be fine at 75 degrees F, may completely fail to start the car at 35 degrees F.

[Wayne Boatwright]

On Thu 08 Jul 2010 08:15:37a, told us...

In the heat of AZ most car batteries rarely survive much over 2 years. Many people routinely replace them at 2 yeaer intervals to help avoid getting stranded in some remote desert area.

[keith]

Battery life is directly proportional to (some high power) of the summer temperature. My original equipment truck battery lasted 8 years in the Vermont cold but crapped out the next summer in Alabama.

[Charlie]

Many years ago a neighbor was a manager at a auto battery factory. I mentioned to him one day that at the local Sears auto department they had a battery on display that was guaranteed for 5 years but had lasted for 9 or

2. His comment was that he hated to see that. His preference was to have the battery fail during the last year of the warranty. That way you would have just enough credit from this old battery that you would take it in and put its value aginst a new battery of the same make.

Once the battery outlasted the warranty period you were free to buy anybody's battery and not just his.

Charlie

[Roy]

=3D=3D A friend had a Chryco battery that lasted 18 years...unbelievable but true. I changed the battery for her and used a new Chrysler made battery and it lasted 1 year. Since then she has had an UFA battery made my Exide I believe, and it has lasted 5 years so far. Yes it is an old car but still runs well. =3D=3D

[LSMFT]

The 9 year old battery still starts the diesel with glow plugs and all in zero degree weather.

[terry]

On Jul 8, 1:46=A0pm, "Charlie" wrote: Also one suspects that exactly the same battery at say $120 that has an extended warranty is the one that is sold with hardly any warranty at all at $89.99!

Also, agree there is no absolute figure for battery life. Higher temperatures do degrade a lead/acid auto type battery significantly. In the Arabian Gulf two years was common. Whereas in this part of Canada replacing a battery is for us a rarity. Here even a used vehicle will often corrode/wear out before the battery dies!

In this cool summer and not too low winter temperature climate our eight year old Nissan V6 pickup battery suddenly failed this June. It was late on Saturday and after getting a boost to start the pickup, drove to a local Walmart as the closest place a battery was available, left the truck running and locked and went in (Auto section closed!) Took a battery off the open rack, checked it out through the cashier, having verified the model number, took it home, gave it a slow overnight charge and the next day installed it.

Having now (after 8 years) had a battery failure I must get around to installing that over ride switch to push or roll start the vehicle. We almost always have had manual transmission vehicle, that could be pushed or roll started even on a low or almost dead battery. This one cannot, darn it!

Oh by the way, even though auto batteries are a nominal 12 volts, after installing the new battery the charging voltage was 14.57 volts, that 's about 2.43 volts per each of the 6 cells. After boosting to get started with the old 'dead' battery the charging voltage was 15.75 volts (way too high) probably indicating that the old battery wasn't accepting a charge.

The worst treatments for lead-acid batteries are; a) Overcharging, it kills them. b) Leaving them for months unused. They self discharge and die. c) Putting them away or parking the vehicle with the battery flat/run down. They will hardly ever be rechargeable again.

[Oren]

'96 Toyota is on it's second battery. '94 Ford Bronco is on it's third battery. This is in the desert of Nevada. Had the originals replaced with Sears Die-Hard brand.

[salty]

That's great!

[Percival P. Cassidy]

Many years ago I went to the store (Sears, maybe) for a new battery. The guy got the correct-sized battery down, asked how long a warranty I wanted, and then punched out the date thingies accordingly,

Perce

[FatterDumber& Happier Moe]

I remember back in the mid 70's the battery makers came out with lifetime guaranteed batteries. That didn't last long. Now days with fuel injection cars start much much easier and that makes it a lot easier on the batteries. I use a battery maintainer if the vehicle is going to parked for over a month or two and also use one over winter on the riding lawnmower battery. Some vehicles drain them quicker than others when they sit, parasitic loads. I had a friend with a late model Caddy and it would drain the battery in less than 2 weeks. My Ford/Mazda pickup can sit for.... I don't know it never did drain the battery while sitting except when the door didn't shut completely a couple of times. Now that's hard on a battery, running it completely dead.

[Doug Miller]

I bought a 1984 Buick, used, in 1991. About six years later, it needed a new battery -- turned out the AC-Delco battery I removed was the *original*, manufactured in November 1983 or something like that.

[Stormin Mormon]

Typicaly about 6 months less than whatever is on the warranty. I'm not being sarcastic, that's my real-life experience.

I find 4 to 5 years for mine. I'd replace both of yours, today. Get a good brand like Interstate.

[Stormin Mormon]

I got one from Advance Auto Parts and Battery. Disappointing. Find out later it was a circuit in my vehicle that was draining. Oops. I'm told Interstate is finest quality.