Originally Posted By: thastinger
Since it is a 6 cell battery, overall voltage readings do not tell you anything significant about the health of the battery. You could have a weak cell and a strong cell but averaged out, everything seems fine. A fully charged car battery should be 13.8-14.4 VDC. You need a temperature compensated specific gravity meter to tell you the health of each cell, if each cell measures 1.72(ish) SG then keep running it, if under 1.250 for any given cell, replace it.
You're thinking of the voltage of the car battery when the alternator is running. There are many state of charge charts out there and they all pretty much say the same, they basically translate the specific gravity to a voltage reading and that's 12.7. I bet you won't find any battery on Walmart's shelf that has a 13.8-14.4 voltage. Remember, the car's electrical system has to put out a higher voltage in order for current to flow back and charge the battery. But hey what do I know, my degree is only in electrical engineering.
The real answer should be to get it load tested, otherwise you may be throwing out a perfectly good battery.
Remember, those state of charge charts and reference voltages refer to a battery at rest with no load on it. A battery connected to the car has a load on it as all systems like alarms, clocks, computer memory all take a little current to keep alive. The voltage will be higher once it's disconnected.