Should I replace my car battery?

LuckyTaxi

Diamond Member
Dec 24, 2000
6,044
23
81
I have a 2014 Honda Accord and live in PA. This past week has been super cold and I haven't driven the car in 3 days. I had to jump start it last night (drove it around the block) and again this morning before I head off to work. Both times, the car turned over and I'm now sitting at the train station parking lot giving the car time to charge the battery.

Should I just replace the battery? Visually it looks fine, no crud around the terminal s.
 

Yuriman

Diamond Member
Jun 25, 2004
5,530
141
106
Just driving around the block isn't going to charge your battery up. I'd take it for a long drive and give it another chance, but for what it's worth, it was -25F last night and I had no trouble starting.
 

desy

Diamond Member
Jan 13, 2000
5,433
204
106
Yeah you have to go 20-25 min at HW speed to charge it.
If it was bought in 2013 that battery is getting close to 5 yrs old and if you are outside lots and short trips lots it may be time to get another regardless of how it looks
 

HarryLui

Golden Member
Aug 31, 2001
1,518
33
91
Auto parts store will charge and test the battery for free. I suggest taking yours in.
 

razel

Platinum Member
May 14, 2002
2,337
90
101
Yup average life for the typical person is 5 years even here in mild Southern CA. Batteries will have a hard time putting out energy when cold. In order to get your battery out of the danger zone after it's dead, you'll need closer to an hour of highway driving to charge. Someone suggested 20 mins... you could take a scenic router to drive 30 mins one way then return.

At 5 years, I'd just replace it to get it done and over with. Things won't get better.
 

lakedude

Platinum Member
Mar 14, 2009
2,549
263
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As the others have said, it won't hurt to get it tested.

If the car is typically driven on short trips the battery could be fine and just not getting a chance to be charged up. In this case you might invest in a trickle charger to keep the battery topped off.

The car is new enough I wouldn't normally suspect other electrical issues but you never know. The alternator might not be charging or there could easily be a bad connection.

Do you have an electric meter? The voltage at the battery with the car running should be around 14 volts. With the car off closer to 12 volts. If you don't have a meter sometimes cars will have gauges for such things. An OBD2 tester can be handy for these types of things as well. If the gauge is showing 14 volts but the battery measures less you have a bad connection.
 

lakedude

Platinum Member
Mar 14, 2009
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If you do get a battery I suggest avoiding O'Reilly and Walmart. Maybe get a Dura-last or a Die-Hard (is Sears still in business?). Optima has also been good but they are somewhat proud of their batteries.
 

jlee

Lifer
Sep 12, 2001
48,511
219
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If you do get a battery I suggest avoiding O'Reilly and Walmart. Maybe get a Dura-last or a Die-Hard (is Sears still in business?). Optima has also been good but they are somewhat proud of their batteries.

Optima quality has gone downhill, unfortunately.
 

BurnItDwn

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
26,070
1,552
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Get a new one if its old, otherwise, if you arent sure, at least get it tested.

We usually buy Interstate batteries, but honestly, any brand of battery likely will be fine.
 

WackyDan

Diamond Member
Jan 26, 2004
4,794
68
91
FYI - Jump starting batteries fucks them up. If you have jumped it more than once, given it's age it might be a safe bet to replace it.
 

WhoBeDaPlaya

Diamond Member
Sep 15, 2000
7,414
401
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Sounds like you do a lot of short trips.
Invest in a charger and hook it up every now and then.
 
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C1

Platinum Member
Feb 21, 2008
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I would check the charging voltage. You may have a regulator with crappy voltage compensation for temperature. At zero deg F you should probably be charging at 15 volts and maybe more.

Here is an interesting tutorial on lead acid batteries and temperature:


Temperature Effects on Batteries

Battery capacity (how many amp-hours it can hold) is reduced as temperature goes down, and increased as temperature goes up. This is why your car battery dies on a cold winter morning, even though it worked fine the previous afternoon. If your batteries spend part of the year shivering in the cold, the reduced capacity has to be taken into account when sizing the system batteries. The standard rating for batteries is at room temperature - 25 degrees C (about 77 F). At approximately -22 degrees F (-27 C), battery AH capacity drops to 50%. At freezing, capacity is reduced by 20%. Capacity is increased at higher temperatures - at 122 degrees F, battery capacity would be about 12% higher.

Battery charging voltage also changes with temperature. It will vary from about 2.74 volts per cell (16.4 volts) at -40 C to 2.3 volts per cell (13.8 volts) at 50 C. This is why you should have temperature compensation on your charger or charge control if your batteries are outside and/or subject to wide temperature variations. Some charge controls have temperature compensation built in (such as Morningstar) - this works fine if the controller is subject to the same temperatures as the batteries. However, if your batteries are outside, and the controller is inside, it does not work that well. Adding another complication is that large battery banks make up a large thermal mass.

Thermal mass means that because they have so much mass, they will change internal temperature much slower than the surrounding air temperature. A large insulated battery bank may vary as little as 10 degrees over 24 hours internally, even though the air temperature varies from 20 to 70 degrees. For this reason, external (add-on) temperature sensors should be attached to one of the POSITIVE plate terminals, and bundled up a little with some type of insulation on the terminal. The sensor will then read very close to the actual internal battery temperature.

Even though battery capacity at high temperatures is higher, battery life is shortened. Battery capacity is reduced by 50% at -22 degrees F - but battery LIFE increases by about 60%. Battery life is reduced at higher temperatures - for every 15 degrees F over 77, battery life is cut in half. This holds true for ANY type of Lead-Acid battery, whether sealed, gelled, AGM, industrial or whatever. This is actually not as bad as it seems, as the battery will tend to average out the good and bad times. Click on the small graph to see a full size chart of temperature vs capacity.

One last note on temperatures - in some places that have extremely cold or hot conditions, batteries may be sold locally that are NOT standard electrolyte (acid) strengths. The electrolyte may be stronger (for cold) or weaker (for very hot) climates. In such cases, the specific gravity and the voltages may vary from what we show.

https://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=12250.0
 

mindless1

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2001
8,052
1,442
126
The short answer is that if the battery doesn't retain enough capacity for your environment (temperature) and use scenario, it's time to replace it, except that you might want to measure parasitic draw to be sure the vehicle doesn't have another problem causing the battery to drain at an excessive rate, which could be anything from a wire short due to (whatever, rodent chewing wire insulation), sticking relay, electronic component leakage or short, etc.

Typically a (very) few 10's of mA is an acceptable rate in an off state, though some vehicles with courtesy lights and other fancy circuitry may operate in the 100's mA range for a period ranging from minutes to an hour (ballpark) until they switch to a low power 10's of mA rate.
 

x26

Senior member
Sep 17, 2007
734
15
81
I have a 2014 Honda Accord and live in PA. This past week has been super cold and I haven't driven the car in 3 days. I had to jump start it last night (drove it around the block) and again this morning before I head off to work. Both times, the car turned over and I'm now sitting at the train station parking lot giving the car time to charge the battery.

Should I just replace the battery? Visually it looks fine, no crud around the terminal s.

Time for a Battery Tender!!

Battery Tender Plus 021-0128, 1.25 Amp Battery Charger is a Smart Charger, it will Fully Charge and Maintain a Battery at Proper Storage Voltage without the Damaging Effects Caused by Trickle Chargers
https://www.amazon.com/Battery-Tend...qid=1514846892&sr=1-4&keywords=battery+tender

Best Car Purchase I've Made.
 

mindless1

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2001
8,052
1,442
126
^ $45 for that?! Grab some random 12VDC 1A unregulated wall wart out of a parts bin, slap an LM317/etc regulator after it, set to a float voltage around 13.5V depending on ambient temperature. Total cost around $1.50 if you're already set up to make that sort of thing.

If you're not willing to DIY, there are a lot of other chargers available which do as well and have higher current initial charge too within that $50 ballpark.

If it doesn't need to be a one-size-fits-all charger, if you only need it for one specific vehicle then it gets cheaper still. You can measure the charge current once it gets up to float voltage and use the same unregulated 12VDC supply with just a few pennies cost resistor or diode(s).

The whole idea about "damaging effects caused by trickle chargers" started as the idea that someone was using faster charging and then trickle was a much higher rate than that needed to maintain a float voltage. If there is nothing wrong with the vehicle causing an unduly fast discharge rate, you could just make a blind shot in the dark like a 100mA rate and end up fine for the purposes of short term (only a few months at a time or less) storage, or if you don't like blind shots, measure the discharge rate.
 

Scarpozzi

Lifer
Jun 13, 2000
26,389
1,778
126
I parked my 2011 4Runner a few weeks back on Saturday evening and it wouldn't turn over the following Monday. I jumped it off my truck and let it idle for a good 45 minutes. I parked next to a buddy of mine in the office and went home for lunch...it started right up then and I've not had any issues with it since. I think it's about time for me to replace mine, but it's not bad.....just weak..unless a door was left open or something to cause the lights to stay on that I didn't notice.

Someone posted something about highway speeds being required for charging a battery. I've never heard this. Batteries will charge at idle. The typical output of the battery when the alternator is going is 13-14 volts on my cars in the past. In most cases, you need 10 or so volts to start a car and sometimes more to keep the computer voltages high enough for the computer to function properly. I once had a Jeep Cherokee that had a weak battery for months. Started up no problem, but for the first 2-3 minutes of idle, it ran extremely rough. The low battery voltage (because it was charging up) was causing the computer to screw up the intake adjustments and it ran terrible. Finally when the battery died for good and I put a new one in it, it ran perfect again.

Most factory batteries will last 5-6 years. Past that, the batteries sold at Walmart and places that only have a 2-3 year warranty typically last that long. I'm not sure if they're just cutting corners or what, but I've seen a lot of those cheaper batteries suffer when it comes to reliability. If you get a battery tested and it's not 100%, it will probably fail the test...but if it has specific issues with a particular cell being low, it will detect those.
 

mindless1

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2001
8,052
1,442
126
^ At idle vehicles are designed so the stock alternator and pulley will supply all power needed for stock equipment and slightly charge the battery. Without stock equipment (like lights) on that will happen faster.

However most alternators ramp up current faster than engine RPM above ~ 1000 RPM. Here is a typical alternator output graph but keep in mind that the RPMs are alternator RPM not engine, which due to the pulley ratio is typically around 2:1 to engine RPM.

41EoleIz6eL._SX355_.jpg