3 batteries in 2 years, any ideas?

Don M

Don M

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My car has gone through three batteries in the last two years. The only 'drains' to the system that I know of are the clock/radio memory and a streamlite flashlight charger hooked up in the trunk. This is the 2nd time it's been in the shop for this and oddly enough EVERY battery has died in early/mid November. My suspicion is that the shop is using a cheap battery as a replacement, because they said last time, the battery only has a one year warranty on it. I've never burned out batteries like this before and I seem to remember batteries have 1 - 6 year warranties on them, not jut 1 year.

Any ideas?
 
Why is a shop replacing your battery? Do you mean dealership under warranty? It sounds like you have a short somewhere.
 
Rsurfer said:
Why is a shop replacing your battery? Do you mean dealership under warranty? It sounds like you have a short somewhere.
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Right now, I'm just under the one year warranty, so the shop has to replace it free, if I was outside of the warranty I would be buying a GOOD battery and doing it myself.
 
The battery business has changed, FWIW. They seem to have gone away from the 5-6-7 year prorated warranties and have gone to 2 and 3 year free-replacement warranties. Still, a 1 years seems like it's a low end battery.

One thing to check is if that Streamlight charger is warm all the time, if it is, it's a drain on the battery, just like the "wall wart" battery chargers in your house. I have found that when I have cars with marginal batteries, leaving cell phone chargers plugged in (with no phone) or radar detectors on will have an effect on the battery within a few days.

I was a big fan of the Delco Freedom sealed batteries, but they don't make them anymore (victim of the Delphi bankruptcy). Sears has gold and platinum batteries that are AGM with the gold being sealed like the old Delco and the platinum fully sealed. I've also eyed up the Exide Edge AGM. None of these are cheap.

The November timeframe coincides with the onset of cold weather, it's usually that first really cold morning when you find out you've been driving all summer with a marginal battery.
 
A baterry drain-check warrants attention here, IMO. On YT, there is a channel called ericthecarguy, who explains how to do this with a relatively simple process. I highly recommend the video.
 
Frequent starts throughout the day, and short trips less than 10-15 minutes will drain batteries faster than usual.
 
Ck current draw should not be more than 500 mili votes.
You can test the alternator for ac voltage leaking through battery can absorb some ac voltage but it will kill the battery over time
Ck ac voltage riding on top of the dc with an osiliscope
 
You most likely have an excess draw on the system, thus two good test would be parasitic drop test, and or an voltage drop test to determine/pin point the excessive current draw
 
Don M said:
My car has gone through three batteries in the last two years. The only 'drains' to the system that I know of are the clock/radio memory and a streamlite flashlight charger hooked up in the trunk.
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I'd definitely remove the aftermarket parasitic drain.

Don M said:
My suspicion is that the shop is using a cheap battery as a replacement
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What kind of "shop" is this?!?!
A one-year-battery...wth!

Don M said:
Right now, I'm just under the one year warranty, so the shop has to replace it free, if I was outside of the warranty I would be buying a GOOD battery and doing it myself.
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Going "outside" of their battery's one year warranty, and getting a good 5-year-battery and installing it myself...would be well worth it to me to not have this worrisome problem hanging over my head year after year after year.

Note:
Once you're back up and running...
If you don't have a multi-voltmeter:
Many Autozones/PepBoys will check your vehicle's
charging system for peanuts.

Bob
 
Umm you have a flashlight charger hooked up to your car's electrical system and your wondering why your going through batteries ???
 
I've had the charger in the car since it was new (2006), I only started having a battery problems two years ago 2011/2012.
 
Same happened to my wife's Accord over the course of five years, killing her OE battery at six years, and a succession of three heavy-duty Kirkland (Johnson Controls) 880 CCA batteries going flat every couple of weeks and dying completely after the third or fourth revival. Luckily they are 36-month free replacement, and 100 month pro-rated. It took a few years and multiple repair attempts but I finally figured it out: the trouble started when my wife changed jobs, going from commuting 25 miles each way to just two miles and longer vacations and breaks.

When she got the car I had a remote starter installed, but it was never a problem while the car was being driven longer distances; short distance driving and longer periods of the car sitting unused couldn't make up for the remote starter system's parasitic draw. With the short commutes I asked if she really needed the remote, and when she agreed that she didn't, I pulled its fuses. The battery hasn't died since, about 16 months on now.
 
Don M said:
I've had the charger in the car since it was new (2006), I only started having a battery problems two years ago 2011/2012.
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Ok. Then my guess is your LIKELY having one of 2 issues. First, parasitic drains are not common if the vehicle doesn't have aftermarket stuff on it. But, there is an easy way to tell.

Just get a test light. With the car and everything off, d/c the + battery cable. Hook up the TL alligator clip to the d/c'ed battery terminal and tap the TL tip to the positive of the battery once for a second. The light will prolly light - that's normal.

After that, place the tip of the TL on the battery and see if the TL lights. If so (anything but super dim) - you have a drain.

After that it's somewhat easy to find the drain. Just start pulling fuses one at a time until the TL goes out. Then you know the drain is on that fuse circuit.

But, I doubt that is your problem. If so, the car would be going dead again soon after you get the new battery - not many months later.

My guess is:

1. Poor ground / connections or bad battery cables.

2. Bad diode rectifiers in the alternator (means replacing the alternator). If a positive diode is bad - this could POSSIBLY (not likely) cause a drain. But, it will wreck the battery over time. This can be checked with a multi meter that reads AC voltage.

Just connect the multimeter to bat positive and chassis ground with the car running on AC scale. A little AC voltage is OK. Anything approaching 3/4 a volt or so means your alternator is toast.

I'm assuming your belt is tight and spinning the alternator correctly? Do the lights dim at night when you turn the wheel to lock?
 
What type of vehicle is it? The reason I'm asking is because my daughter has a Volvo XC-90 and was having the same problem. When she would get back to the airport after a few days out of town on business, the battery would be dead. And, it happened with every replacement battery. The dealership finally traced it to the satellite radio. She cancelled the account a few years ago, and for whatever reason, the radio all of a sudden started trying to connect to a satellite.

No one seems to know why, although I suspect it was during promotional times when Sirius/XM started trying to turn on radios that had been discontinued from their service. The dealership wanted to replace the whole thing for $800 plus labor, but she had another shop disconnect the satellite phase of the radio altogether.
They keep hounding me about my GT-500, but I didn't but the car to listen to the radio.
 
Don M said:
I've had the charger in the car since it was new (2006), I only started having a battery problems two years ago 2011/2012.
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Yeah, well, batteries suck now. GM was putting Chinese "Delco" batteries in new cars and was having a lot of premature failures. Sounds like after the original battery that was pretty good, you have just been getting junky cheap (1-year) ones.

As has been noted a lot of stuff plays into it, short trips, parasitic drains, storage time, etc.
 
swanicyouth said:
I'm assuming your belt is tight and spinning the alternator correctly? Do the lights dim at night when you turn the wheel to lock?
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Yes, yes and no.

The shop that has the car has been working on my FIL's cars for years and since I got married, they have worked on my wife's cars when it was something I couldn't do. The wife thinks I have a "Tim the Toolman" gene and screw up everything and doesn't like it when I want to fix something.

The only thing she does agree that I'm good at is detailing.
 
swanicyouth said:
First, parasitic drains are not common if the vehicle doesn't have aftermarket stuff on it.
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Yikes, are you kidding? With all the crap the cars have on them today (telematics, etc.)? I had my battery replaced under the new car warranty, and the service writer said "you didn't let the car sit for a long time, did you?" so I asked what was a long time, and he said "2 weeks". I told him that the car had only been sitting overnight, and it wouldn't start this morning, what I didn't tell him is that it was common for me to let it sit for a couple weeks at a time and the battery had been getting progressively worse so that now it wouldn't even last overnight.

But back to the point, 2 weeks is a long time?? In the old days I used to let my 70's beater car with the Delco Freedom battery in it sit for 6 months, OUTSIDE, and it would still start (well, that was after the clock stopped working, it might have been only 4 months when the clock was working).
 
SameGuy said:
Same happened to my wife's Accord over the course of five years, killing her OE battery at six years, and a succession of three heavy-duty Kirkland (Johnson Controls) 880 CCA batteries going flat every couple of weeks and dying completely after the third or fourth revival. Luckily they are 36-month free replacement, and 100 month pro-rated. It took a few years and multiple repair attempts but I finally figured it out: the trouble started when my wife changed jobs, going from commuting 25 miles each way to just two miles and longer vacations and breaks.

When she got the car I had a remote starter installed, but it was never a problem while the car was being driven longer distances; short distance driving and longer periods of the car sitting unused couldn't make up for the remote starter system's parasitic draw. With the short commutes I asked if she really needed the remote, and when she agreed that she didn't, I pulled its fuses. The battery hasn't died since, about 16 months on now.
Click to expand...
My 1988 Honda Lemon, er, Accord Coupe did this too. Never figured out what was causing it but along with several other issues I sold the car and never went back to Honda. No aftermarket anything was installed on it though. I bought it new with less than 20 miles on the clock; worst car ever and sadly before the advent of Lemon Laws. :nomore:

Sorry for the thread hi-jack.
 
Setec Astronomy said:
Yikes, are you kidding? With all the crap the cars have on them today (telematics, etc.)? I had my battery replaced under the new car warranty, and the service writer said "you didn't let the car sit for a long time, did you?" so I asked what was a long time, and he said "2 weeks". I told him that the car had only been sitting overnight, and it wouldn't start this morning, what I didn't tell him is that it was common for me to let it sit for a couple weeks at a time and the battery had been getting progressively worse so that now it wouldn't even last overnight.

But back to the point, 2 weeks is a long time?? In the old days I used to let my 70's beater car with the Delco Freedom battery in it sit for 6 months, OUTSIDE, and it would still start (well, that was after the clock stopped working, it might have been only 4 months when the clock was working).
Click to expand...

Sounds like your talking about a normal OE drain that is normal for the vehicle. New cars do have a lot of electronic junk on them - but most of it is switched off with the ignition. Something not getting switched off that should be switched off due to some malfunction, like a sticking relay - really isn't too common. I've only seen it maybe 2 or 3 times. I've left my trunk open in my BMW (light on) overnight a bunch of times and it fires right up.

On the other hand - the OP needs a good battery to start. I've had exceptional luck with BMW factory batteries lasting 7 years or so. I'm not sure what type they use... But I recall doing some research a few years ago and came to the conclusion Wal Mart actually sells pretty good batteries for their top of the line.

Either way, most batteries will last at least a few years. Something isn't right with the OP's electrical system IMHO.
 
My car is a 2006, Suzuki Aerio/DD and I have a 90 mile round trip to work everyday, the longest it sits is three days, so the short trip/frequent starts isn't an issue
 
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