First time any Toyota in the family has failed to start

[ccs368]

My '15 Sienna with under only 20k miles just had its battery replaced this past summer or 4 years. Drove 3 miles to a bakery and when I tried to restart, it clicked and clicked and luckily fired up. Measured voltage and it was something like ~11.8V. Yes I was nervous that my charging system was faulty but ended up just being my OEM battery that simply expired.

This van sometimes didn't run for months at a time and infrequent charging once in awhile so perhaps just sitting there accelerated its death but I'll never know.

Previously, my '05 Tacoma had its OEM battery lasted me like 8 years and I just felt I was on borrowed time before the winter months coming so I changed it.

Basically, batteries are sometimes unpredictable and hopefully won't leave you stranded but do make sure there's nothing strange going on like parasitic drains or malfunctioning charging system.

 

[caprice_2nv]

Our 2010 Tacoma work truck has had at least 3 batteries in it's lifetime. Our 2005 Silverado is on battery number 3. 2002 GMC went over 10 years on the original and it sat a lot when the original owner had it.

 

[Luftmasse]

What brand was the battery do you know?
Batteries usually last 3-5 years and they start failing. Anything longer is an outstanding battery brand.

 

[tig1]

The OPs battery had a dead short as my battery had 2 weeks ago in the 2017 Fusion. That has nothing to do with the car itself. Batteries sometimes short (sometimes tires go flat) out and generally can't be jumped. At least that's my experience.

 

[littlehulkster]

My mom's CR-V used to have constant battery issues, but in her case it's because Honda fitted the cars with a puny little battery (size 51R, 450CCA) that simply couldn't handle cold temperatures with a modern, energy hungry car. She doesn't drive much so it'd go dead every week or so in the winter.

I swapped in a size 24, which went in pretty easily, and there are no problems since. I don't know why Honda put those batteries in their cars, I guess they just wanted to save a buck.