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Battery Blues

We took a few days off to visit one of our fine lake resorts, as we like to do every year. My 1996 SL2 was our means of transportation and we covered the 266 km in short order.

I stopped once to find out where the motel's parking lot was. I moved the car to the unloading spot and we had a meal and a rest. About midnight I went to start the car, after it had been sitting about seven hours. Turned the key and the starter grunted once and refused to do anything more. It didn't take a genius to know the battery was dead as a doornail, so dead even the clock stopped. WTF had drained the battery? It was almost

2-years-old and was still going strong, until this time. Only explanation I could imagine was I'd left the lights on accidentally, even though I hadn't used them. That would be very odd, I'd never done that with this car.

Next morning I called CAA for a boost. A guy from a local garage showed up to boost me and the Saturn started up nicely. He said he'd check it out if I drove down to his shop. I took to the road for 35 minutes to recharge the battery, parked, and shut down the engine. Turned on the starter and nothing happened, still dead as dead can be.

Feeling like a complete idiot I phoned CAA again and got another boost from the same mechanic, only this time I drove down to his two-bay shop for a checkout. Question was which was shot, the alternator or the battery, or maybe both. The alternator trouble light wasn't on so it seemed to be charging OK. He tried charging the battery with his shop charger and it didn't do a thing. OK, time to try a new battery. Problem solved, the engine started smartly.

Well, I've never had a battery which lasted just under two years, in fact, the first one went eight years. And the second odd thing is I've never had a battery which went from fully functional to fully dead with absolutely no warning. Only thing I can figure is it must have had some kind of internal meltdown which broke the internal circuit completely.

Anyone have this happen to them?

Reply to
Box134
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Batteries can develop internal shorts between cells or even opens between the cells or the cells and the posts. I've seen the latter happen during especially hot weather. When the battery opens completely, nothing will work, not even an inside light or the radio. You really need a voltmeter to see what was happening when the battery was sitting idle, under attempted start condition, as well as once the vehicle was jumped and running. If the battery was open and the alternator was working, then the voltage at the battery cables after the car was started would be well above the normal 14 or so volts since the battery would not have been regulating the alternator. In fact, running at this elevated voltage for too long can actually cause other electrical (computer, radio, etc) failures.

The bottom line is this is all very feasible and without additional information from you to better describe the symptoms (what happened after the initial starter grunt, was everything then completely dead - no further grunts, lights, etc?) and some voltage measurements, we would just be guessing. In any event, you should have some sort of warranty for the 2 year old battery, but it will likely not be redeemable as credit since you probably already purchased a replacement.

Reply to
Bob Shuman

There are simply a certain number of defective batteries in every production.

I bought a new Jeep Cherokee in 2000. The battery went dead with NO warning in 3 months. My dealer installed a new battery, and it went dead in 6 more months. Dealer replaced it again.

The third battery is still working fine !!

--James--

Reply to
James

When I had mine, battery replacement was every twos years over the 11 I had the car. Heat may have been the biggest factor that killed mine.

Most of the jumps were short lived. The car has so much electrical stuff (computer and electric fuel pump) that it didn't survive very long and would surley die at the next inopportune time - like between 1st and 2nd gear (manual trans.) coming off a signal light. Some jumps were total failures and I needed to get a new battery just to get it going again.

The infamous Saturn alternator failure might have been part of the problem early on. The following battery was in the car un until I sold it (3 years). Never saw a light that indicated it was bad. Someone suggested it may be faulty and causing all the two-year failures. Maybe it was?

B~

Reply to
B. Peg

Well, that is amazing to me. I've never replaced batteries that often. I got

10 years from one on a K-car, and it never failed. I just decided it was time. With the Saturn, my driving conditions were the same for the first battery as the second, other than the second battery had the replacement alternator. When I had the third battery installed last week the mechanic used his all-purpose meter to gauge how well it was charging. It was in the acceptable range, although on the low end. However, his instrument didn't have much resolution and another guy looked at it and said it was OK. So who knows?

I wonder if dealers have a gadget to test batteries? It'd have to be some type of load test to see how well the system responds to and recovers from a high load.

Reply to
Box134

wow, 10 years on a single car battery that was used every day? Gee, lemme know where you live and what magical brand you use, I want one. Here in FL and most places where there is heat, which is most states, when a car battery is used every day, even on short trips, engine heat alone will take it's toll on the battery. Most batterys, especially lately will only have an average lifespan of 2 years if you are lucky, after that you are on borrowed time and good luck.

I use Diehard batterys myself, I dont like Delco batterys, they just cant take heat well. I want to try Optima but they dont seem to make a side post yet.

marx404

Reply to
marx404

Can't even tell you the brand, came with a 1982 Aries, so I had whatever was Chrysler's house brand was in those days. The car was driven every day, but we have the opposite problem to yours, too much cold, -30°C or -35°C. It sounds as if cold is better than heat for batteries, not something I'd have expected. The Aries wasn't much of a current draw I suppose, a very basic car. Fanciest thing on it was an automatic tranny, no AC.

The latest battery to drop dead was a Delco.

Best of luck with the hurricane. Hope you're not close to it.

Reply to
Box134

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