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?

 

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.

Bob
..

 

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--

 

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~

 

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.

 

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

 

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.