Battery problem???

[painterdave72]

I have a question.. my car has recently started being hard to start after parked for a while.. the battery is going on seven or eight years old but load tested out fine last month.. with all accesories on the car has around 13.7 or so charging at the battery posts....it has randomly died once or twice so i am thinking it is on its last legs?? The car is also sputtering a little bit when u give it alot of gas but otherwise runs awesomely.. I cleaned the coil wire a few weeks back because it was corroded a little bit and that seemed to fix it but now is doing it once again.. could a dieing battery be causing this also?? I am going to pull the battery tomorow and most likely buy a new one. just wanted some input before i spend money.. lol.. thanks..Dave...

[Jonathan]

IMHO, if your battery is 7-8 years old, then spending the ~$100 for a brand new, warrantied battery would be money well spent. 5 years isn't bad for a battery, so you've done pretty well. It sounds like your gut feel has already told you your answer.

[jawn101]

My gut keeps telling me my battery is too old as well. So I keep bringing it to the store to trade in, and they always test it and say it's working great, so I wuss out and reinstall it. Mine came with the car and doesn't have a manufacture date on it. I've been told that some shops will sell 'old' batteries that still test good for cheap but with no warranty, and they remove the date stickers when they do. That may be where this came from but it keeps chugging along.

Maybe after I get the car back on the road I'll finally get that Optima I'm after.

[Bitsyncmaster]

In all my years, I think the maximum I've had a battery was about 7 years but those were daily drivers. I'm on year 6 on my Optima (yellow top) in my D and it shows no signs of slow starting. One thing that makes batteries fail is how many times they get deep discharged (your lights stay on).

[Ron]

I have a question.. my car has recently started being hard to start after parked for a while.. the battery is going on seven or eight years old but load tested out fine last month.. with all accesories on the car has around 13.7 or so charging at the battery posts....it has randomly died once or twice so i am thinking it is on its last legs?? The car is also sputtering a little bit when u give it alot of gas but otherwise runs awesomely.. I cleaned the coil wire a few weeks back because it was corroded a little bit and that seemed to fix it but now is doing it once again.. could a dieing battery be causing this also?? I am going to pull the battery tomorow and most likely buy a new one. just wanted some input before i spend money.. lol.. thanks..Dave...
If the battery starts the car by itself and the alternator keeps it at 13.7, the sputtering problem is something else.
But running a 7-8 year old battery is asking to be stranded...
The random dieing might be a small drain depending on how long it had been sitting.

[painterdave72]

and it finally had a bad cell. .just bought a new one.. i will drive it later!! I dont know what the sputtering is though.. i am going to try a new coil wire to see if that helps it out also.. thanks guys.. Dave..

[painterdave72]

The new battery fixed my problem.. it is charging at around 14 volts with everything on and the sputtering problem is gone.. i guess its possible that it wasnt getting enough volts to the coil and was therefore not getting enough spark so it was causing it to sputter.. now it is running great again!!! Thanks.. Dave..

[David T]

I guess the lesson to be learned here is if you are having a problem with your electrical system and your battery is over 5 years old it is time to replace it. Many shops have cheap testers that cannot really test and diagnose a battery properly. To add to the confusion many of the "techs" don't know how to properly test them and are not able to interpret the results. You can get a decent battery for $70 or so at most auto stores, Costco, BJ's etc. As hyped as the Optmas are, many have not had good experiences with them. For ordinary cars IMHO they are not worth the price. Deep cycling ANY battery is very bad. Like cats, every time you do that you lose one of it's lives. Trouble is you never know you are on the last one till it's gone! Also letting it get very low on charge and then subjecting it to cold weather and then it can freeze. That is a BIG killer and you don't know that it happened till you try to charge it and use it. Batteries are not like sponges, you can not take it all out and then expect it to all go back in. Each cycle takes a little bit of life. The best way to treat a battery is to keep it as charged as you can. If the car is not being used regularly you need to use a Battery tender (or something like it) at least once a month to keep the battery fully charged ALL THE TIME! Also takes a lot of strain off the alternator, it doesn't always have to run at full output trying to recharge a chronically under-charged battery.
David Teitelbaum




The new battery fixed my problem.. it is charging at around 14 volts with everything on and the sputtering problem is gone.. i guess its possible that it wasnt getting enough volts to the coil and was therefore not getting enough spark so it was causing it to sputter.. now it is running great again!!! Thanks.. Dave..

[Ron]

The new battery fixed my problem.. it is charging at around 14 volts with everything on and the sputtering problem is gone.. i guess its possible that it wasnt getting enough volts to the coil and was therefore not getting enough spark so it was causing it to sputter.. now it is running great again!!! Thanks.. Dave..Not likely. You were geting more than the manual calls for (13.5 V) and a lot aren't getting that with no sputtering problems (not to mention the resistors cut the coil feed voltage down....)
If the problem returns, I would revisit the dirty coil connection(s) and replace the coil wire, as you mentioned, if you haven't already.

Anyway, it's good to see you got it going!

[painterdave72]

it was around 13.3 before when the battery was almost dead so it may have been enough to make it sputter ..at least now so far it is great!!