repl battery for accord 01

Hello, Recently went in for an oil change at 35K. The battery load test failed on my car even though I appear to have no starting problems. My questions: Besides the honda battery (delphi), are there other good replacement batteries?
I'm looking at: Everready (by AC delco) $65 Energizer $60 Bosch $79 Diehard $79 (Sears)
Is it normal for the battery to fail load test at only 36K?
THANK YOU!

ap wrote:
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I would get it retested somewhere else. This sounds like it could be a profit-making "service" for the dealer.
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Generally not, though it depends a great deal on the history of the vehicle. Cold winters, hot summers and lots of short trips all reduce battery life. The biggest battery killer is running 'em down and then jump starting. Have you ever left the lights on and killed the battery, then needed a jump start? If so, then it is highly likely that your battery is ready for replacement.
Consumer Reports did a battery comparison test recently. You might want to check it out if you do need a replacement.
John

Replace the battery, it could go at any time is it worth it, to need the car to go somewhere and the battery is dead?
Tom
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That really depends on the climate. When I lived in Phoenix I never had a battery survive three summers - they would almost always give up early in the third summer (like around May, since summer there is pretty much May-September, and it's hit 100 degrees in March.) Now I live in Flagstaff and the only battery I've had to replace in 4 years was in a car we had recently bought.
Other things can suck the life out of a battery, especially if they are run down and charged by driving the car.
Mike

On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 05:49:38 -0700, "Michael Pardee"
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Batteries are not engine componants, they work by time, and not miles. Was the battery topped up?
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Did you let the car run for a little before turning the AC on, and similarly turn the AC off a little bit before you turned the engine off in Az? if not, thats what would have killed them.
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Yes and no. The battery is designed to be chargable. using, and draining and charging the battery doesn't 'damage it' per se. If it is kept below 10V for an extended period of time (say 12 hours or more) then it is irreperably damaged. using a trickle charger is the best way to charge a low battery.
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flobert wrote:
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Au contrar, cycling a battery, especially cycling it into a deep discharge mode, absolutely is a major factor in it's expected life time. Automotive lead-acid batteries do not recover well from deep discharge events. Take almost any new conventional battery and run it through twenty cycles of 90% discharge followed by full recharge. Most will be dead by the end of such a torture test.
John

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More on that and the heat issue on William Darden's great battery site http://www.uuhome.de/william.darden/carfaq12.htm
(The Interstate Battery map he has agrees closely with my Phoenix experience, too: 30 months.)
Mike

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a 90% discharge takes its voltage to somewhere in the 5-6V range, obviously that damages plates. 10V is about 50%, and is aboutt he minimum limit for successfull resotation.
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My car didn't have A/C but had short battery life the same as my wife's. Two years, then replace (and that was with batteries advertised as being designed for hot climates). On hot afternoons the temp guage would already be off the bottom peg before I ever started the engine. The day it was 122, when I started my car the battery simply exploded.
I also buy only full-service batteries. Sealed batteries in that heat are a bad idea, and I just carry on the tradition here.
Mike

On Thu, 28 Jul 2005 15:53:20 -0700, "Michael Pardee"
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Depends on the type of sealed battery. My preference is for a sealled gas recombination based one, with gas vent - they don't explode at all, don't even leak fluid. Used to run them all day long in a big plastic greenhouse, lit by some 40KW of lighting, inside an old WW2 building, with the outside temp in the 110's - not a single roble,.Course, at $300-ish a shot for a reletively small 30Ah one, they're not cheap, but worth it - especially since they'll do about 2000A peak output, and will take the same input as charge.
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Unless I'm mistaken, all sealed lead-acid batteries are recombination with overpresure vents, also known as Valve Regulated Lead Acid (VRLA) batteries.
There are different grid chemistries, though. I assume the automotive types are designed for higher temperatures and non-deep cycle. We use absorbed electrolyte VRLAs where I work (communication sites) and they are spec'd at 15 or 20 years life, depending on the specific model. We started using them because they have a smaller floor area for the capacity than flooded cells and because they don't need venting to the outside or other safety precautions. They have been very tempramental, though, and we have not had one last ten years yet. They all die the same way, and the process was described to me by a friend who worked for ABB selling the things. As they age, the leakage current for a given temperature creeps up. At some point, either because of A/C failure or just because the critical temperature dropped to room temperature, the battery will go into thermal runaway. The leakage current will rise, heating the battery and increasing the leakage and further heating the battery. A couple weeks ago I caught one of our banks at 120 degrees F and consuming 1500 watts... because somebody left the room door open for a few hours. $20K will fix it up just fine, though. The highest temperature we've recorded was 191F, and the tech felt the heat on his face when he entered the room. Around 220F the polypropylene cases soften and the batteries explode like small bombs - I've seen a picture of a room full of equipment that was splattered with boiling acid that way.
The demise in automotive use should be different because a charger isn't on it 24/7. Higher temperatures during charging cause the battery to vent, losing the vented vapor forever. Eventually, the lost water causes the battery to dry up and the output current and capacity to drop - the way gell cells (and that's what all VRLA batteries are, after all) have died for decades. A whole lot better than going supernova!
Mike

On Fri, 29 Jul 2005 16:32:21 -0700, "Michael Pardee"
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sounds like you're using cheap ones. yuasa, powersonic, or similar? those i'd expect, they're prety low quality ones. Personally, i'll always use hawkers - never had a single runaway, explosion or other problem. Had to deal with lots of the cheaper ones exploding, and catching fire before, but in similar situations the hawkers have swelled, and thats about it. There's a reason yuasas and such aren't certified safe for air travel, and hawkers are.
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More expensive than the Hawkers, I suspect - they're GNB Absolyte batteries. The small banks run $5000 US, while the larger banks are $20 thousand. The large bank I mentioned was half a 3000 AH 48V bank. They look like http://www.batterypowersystems.com/products/absolyteIIP.htm .
The likely difference in failure modes is because of the type of service. In communication service, the batteries are "floated" at 2.25 volts per cell by fixed voltage, current limited chargers. In automotive use the charge is more intermittent, so thermal runaway is rare. However, the batteries are much smaller so the thermal mass is smaller. A battery that did fine on in-town trips is really tested on long trips, where the charging is constant enough to possibly trigger thermal runaway.
But I suspect the design is different enough that the car batteries fail through dehydration most of the time. Our Toyota Prius has a sealed lead-acid aux battery... reports from people who've had to replace them are very familiar. They let it run down, charged it by jumping and letting the car charge it, often in warm weather. Sealed batteries are still the old gell cells with minor updates. As long as they aren't in the engine compartment they aren't too bad.
Mike

On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 05:49:21 -0700, "Michael Pardee"
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a 30Ah 12V hawker is about 200, maybe $250. half a bank, of them is 100 for the capcity dobled for the voltage, or, 200. 20,000/200 is about $100 a battery, which is the cheap side, even taking into accont bulk-buying. thats only slightly more than the low-end yuasa's, and then you have to build the bank, and transport etc.
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Actually, i use the hawkers mainly in electric vehicles. Part of my job involves building and testing automotive-type electrical systems, and i usea hawker till its flat, and charge, or at least untli i've finished the day, then top up.
I know British telecom also use them for emergency power systems, and for portable emergency power packs - and if you've ever seen BT's infrastructure, you'll understand why they don't skimp on the batteries.
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