Car Battery Lifetime

Chris · 2016-04-18T00:02:45+00:00

How long do lead/acid car batteries typically last nowadays and does it make any difference if you do low annual mileage but with lots of very short local trips, or high annual long-run motorway miles?

Apr 18, 2016 28 Replies

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Dave Plowman (News) 10 years ago

Car electrics are made to a price set by the car maker. The very worst electrics I ever had on any vehicle was in a Bedford van of the '70s. All AC Delco. Just about every major part like starter motor etc failed. Sometimes more than once.

Lucas made very high quality electrics for the likes of Rolls Royce. And for aerospace.

Basically, UK car makers of that time made the cars as cheaply as possible and quality suffered. It wasn't just the electrics they penny pinched on.

So of course Lucas made stuff at the bottom end of the market - they had to survive.

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Tim Watts 10 years ago

"Lucas: Prince of Darkness."

As the old saying went.

Or:

"Lucas: Home by dark" (if you want to see where you're going).

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Bob Eager 10 years ago

Indeed. That crossed my mind.

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charles 10 years ago

my 1971 Cortina had a LUcas headlamp relay - which failed. I rebuilt it but bought a spare. The spare was a Bosch made one = but I never had to fet it, my repair lasted for the next 8 or so years.

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Dave Plowman (News) 10 years ago

Think a lot of the Lucas 'reputation' was based on people buying an old banger which was neglected. And of course the most likely thing to stop it running would be the electrics including ignition. So then blame the maker.

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Capitol 10 years ago

The Lucas reputation was down to lack of quality control. If it resembled the specified product you shipped it. The Lucas engineers were competent and the design side was sound, but they had no control over what production were doing and it was another example of testing the product for maximum yield, not performance.

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Dave Plowman (News) 10 years ago

Ideal for most car makers of the time, then. As they did exactly the same.

Car makers would also under specify the product. Well remember a Rover P6

3500s I had with an alternator so small it couldn't balance the full load. Earlier models had a larger alternator.

They did much the same with the P6 2000. Fitted the same starter motor as the Mini. When it needed the next size up.

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charles 10 years ago

The Mini and the Anglia used the same starter motor. It was cheaper to buy the spare from a Ford dealer than a BMC one.

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Cursitor Doom 10 years ago

Lucas has always been rubbish for as long as I can remember.

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