I found out the hard way that is how Honda starters go bad sometimes.. I put a battery in my wife's CRV due to slow starting (despite battery load testing good on various testers) and it was the starter that was the problem. After slow starting for probably a year it finally had to be jumped to start one day and the battery was good. Friends 05 Accord had a starter fail the same way.
Replace car battery?
- Thread starter TrainingPolicy
- Start date
I found out the hard way that is how Honda starters go bad sometimes.. I put a battery in my wife's CRV due to slow starting (despite battery load testing good on various testers) and it was the starter that was the problem. After slow starting for probably a year it finally had to be jumped to start one day and the battery was good. Friends 05 Accord had a starter fail the same way.
JHZR2
Staff member
That’s a sign of a shorted cell. Can happen without warning even on newer batteries. Hard to foresee that one.
The guy at OR mentioned checking the starter but once I start the car and it’s ‘warm’ persay, I never experience the sluggish starts. If it continued to do that I figured it would be the starter. Did yours only do it on COLD starts? (Like the car sat overnight or longer than 24 hours) or was it a consistent thing?
The caveat is... aftermarket batteries tend not to provide that information, so you're limited to the automaker's sourced batteries from their parts department.
-------------------------------
Back to the OP.. my factory exide battery lasted only 2 years before it died.
Well... The automakers are not manufacturing their own batteries are they ????
I know Panasonic made batteries for Toyota years ago.
AC Delco, Motorcraft were made by JC...
Exide evidently makes both batteries... For factory and aftermarket...
I'd bet Clarios continues to do that too.
Not sure about others though. Like East Penn etc etc...
Euro vehicles likely source from Varta and maybe Bosch ?? And others ??
My 2002 4.7l Dakota worked fine until 2010 and approx 70k miles. I was needing to take a 6k mile trip through the southwest, and battery cranked slow just before that trip. Perfect timing, and I drove straight to Walmart, and changed there. PU had the towing package for the big battery. Now my 90 F150 would eat a battery every 3 years, and no slow crank warning, just dead. I live in summers of up to 120 deg.
This is not uncommon in a second generation Camry 87-91. I have solved this problem with a relay switch on the starter. It shortened six feet of internally corroded undersized wire to the ignition switch down to nine inches. Also same issue solved by removing and cleaning and reinstalling the neutral safety switch.
No crap sherlock.
You can buy an aftermarket Exide and aftermarket Johnson Controls, which won't have the information needed for battery coding, compared to the equivalent Exide and Johnson controls made for the automakers, which they "source" from for sale into the parts distribution network.
The automakers don't make a lot of parts for their cars.. They source them from suppliers.
To the OP, 12 volts is less than 50% state of charge for a healthy battery, even at freezing. If you can, I would put a battery charger on it overnight and see if it comes up. Then after driving it a few days, check it first thing in the morning and see if the voltage is back down around 12 volts or if it's staying near 12.6, which is what you want. If after several days of driving it's back down at 12 volts, then the battery is probably worn out.
I was asking the question.... Not to give you a hard time there... That was not my thought with that.
So take a lorazepam...
So why can't the "aftermarket" not have the such and such "codes"... When they made the batteries to begin with??
Hard to believe there is no way around that. But I guess it could be that way. Strange.
Last edited:
Find a place with a working Midtronics battery tester.
JHZR2
Staff member
There are basic correlations between RC and Ah. Vendors will sometimes give the info if asked too. When I re-coded my car for a new battery, going from OE to a group 49 AGM, I had to dig up all these data.
Modern era Ford F150's and many other Fords also have battery management.
What happens is that people swap in a new battery and don't reset anything. Your Ford still thinks you have an old battery and waste fuel sending a higher charge to it and the battery life is shortened, too because it's being abused sorta like a deep cycle battery.
Many times this is why the original battery lasted the longest.
Autoparts stores dummies don't know this but there might be a few that blurt out that's only a German thing.
What happens is that people swap in a new battery and don't reset anything. Your Ford still thinks you have an old battery and waste fuel sending a higher charge to it and the battery life is shortened, too because it's being abused sorta like a deep cycle battery.
Many times this is why the original battery lasted the longest.
Autoparts stores dummies don't know this but there might be a few that blurt out that's only a German thing.
So a little update, I went and got the battery/alternator/starter tested today at Autozone. Apparently the battery has a bad cell, (which didn't show up on yesterdays scan) and the starter is starting to go out. The battery is from AAP, so I immediately went over there to a warranty swap. They checked the battery AGAIN and stated that on their scanner it checked good. While at Autozone the voltage checked good but stated it had a bad cell. The AAP reader only checked voltage, while I was there I did a check on my warranty and the warranty just expired in October. The battery is just a hair over 3 years old. So, with that in mind. Where do you guys think I should start, Replace the battery? Replace the starter? Or just drive it until something stops and then go from there?
I never noticed that temperature really affected it one way or another. It started out being intermittent then slowly became constant.
If I was getting inconsistent readings and the battery was not a sealed type, I would test each cell with a hydrometer. You want all the cells to measure very close to each other. A good, fully charged battery will have a specific gravity of around 1.265 at 80f and around 1.25 or so near freezing. If one cell is lower than the rest by more than .030ish, then it's time to replace.
Edit: You can sometimes bring a weak cell back with what's called an "equalization" charge, which is simply a short overcharge. After fully charging until most of the cells reach 1.265 specific gravity, you apply around a 15.5v charge for an hour or two until you get bubbling in the electrolyte and the specific gravity stops going up, but no more than a few hours. This isn't something you want to do much with a regular starting battery, but it can sometimes get you a few more months or a year of life out of one in a pinch.
Edit: You can sometimes bring a weak cell back with what's called an "equalization" charge, which is simply a short overcharge. After fully charging until most of the cells reach 1.265 specific gravity, you apply around a 15.5v charge for an hour or two until you get bubbling in the electrolyte and the specific gravity stops going up, but no more than a few hours. This isn't something you want to do much with a regular starting battery, but it can sometimes get you a few more months or a year of life out of one in a pinch.
Amazon.com: OTC 4619 Professional Battery Hydrometer , Red : Automotive
Buy OTC 4619 Professional Battery Hydrometer , Red: Battery Testers - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases
www.amazon.com
Last edited:
I have jumper cables in all my vehicles
gathermewool
Site Donor 2023
I've never heard of this. How are we supposed to determine whether we have a battery monitoring system that needs to be reset?
I'd imagine this information would be in the OM. It's not in either of mine.
What's the cheapest tool that would accomplish this? I don't see this as an option on my iPhone's DashCmd app.
I can see the value of resetting the system and inputting the new spec's, but I don't understand why it needs to have a serial number. If the tool updates often then wouldn't the battery spec's come with the serial number? Otherwise, I don't see the point.
Last edited:
It would normally be in the repair manual. There's certain things they don't cover in the OM including things like how to change the transmission fluid. You probably have to get a more complex app that can do manufacturer specific things, but even then, some of those are a little limited. Usually the full manufacturer tool is pretty expensive and even a knock off is several hundred dollars. Only thing that comes close to being cheap I can think of is Forscan which works on Ford cars, even lets you recode keys for free.