Thread: Battery death........

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I went to get a haircut yesterday and pulled into the parking lot shut her down ,got my hair cut and went to leave and nothing......had lights and key buzzer ,but no cranking at all ,not even relay buzz........of course I had no tools on me or anything...luckily I was 4 doors down from the parts house.....

So I went down and bought a pair of vice grips and a screw driver to see what I could find out,took all the battery connections loose ,cleaned it all and tried to fire it again...no luck ,but i did get relay clicking ,just a few clicks.

So I took the old battery out went down and bought a new one,installed it and she fired right up.........

I have never had a battery just die without lights being on or alternator being bad....usually some reason for it anyway.Then i took the old battery back to the parts house and had it tested and it tested bad,not just dead.......

I guess it just decided to die for some reason,thank goodness it was 4 doors down from the parts house and not on the side of the freeway or up in the hills 30 miles from town,I got lucky this time ....

I guess batteries can just die when they want for no reason at all,this is a new one on me.


Thats my haircut story ,it only costed me 100 bucks for me haircut is what I have been telling my friends....

I have a '93 S-10 4X4 Blazer that I use as a tractor in our yard, it has no overdrive or 3rd gear but it pulls strong on removing fence posts, and such. but now the battery died, I mean dead!!! can't even jump it with the 50 amps to start it. Now batteries have jumped in price $80.00 around here, I hate to get one, cause soon I'm pulling the motor to put in the wifes '27 tudor Sedan! and I only need to pull about 7 more posts first, then I'm done with it.

Pat

the battery was totally dead on my new toyota when i recovered it from the salvage yard .. someone left the switch on .. i trickle charged it a few times and it recovered nicely .. but yeah iv`e had plenty battery`s just die without warning ..

Had a newer dry cell Harley battery crap out after barely a year and a half!
Also had a battery die like shawnlee, and found it had a broke plate inside. Frustrating! Glad it was only the battery and your back on the road!

most likely it had internal short causing battery to run down. this condition also causes loud booms. I would not try to recharge.

Funny you would mention dead batteries.I have just installed 6 new batteries in my golf cart today. Could not make 1 round without just making it home. I called the golf shop that services my cart and he wanted 120.00 ea + tax for the Trojan brand.I went to Sam's and bought the same battery for(6 V 220 AH SAME CASE DIFFERENT BRAND)for 67.66 + tax.Man they are ripping us old folks off real bad.

It only took me 2 hrs at the most + phone time price shopping and I saved a bundle. In your case you were lucky to be close to a parts store. Did you try to get a boost from some one?

If you have an Optima (or Odyssey or similar) battery and it runs down (like when you leave the headlights on), a regular battery charger will not always recharge it.....an AGM (absorption glass mat) battery has such little internal resistance, a regular charger will think that there is a short and will kick out or indicate a fault (like a bad battery).

I recently connected a charger to a run-down Optima without thinking. The charger indicated that the battery was bad and not rechargable. I then connected my newer charger with an AGM setting and the battery charged fine.

A guy at work said that he had two Optimas that would not charge....we tried the AGM setting and Viola! both charged normally.

Mike

Originally Posted by sg4356

most likely it had internal short causing battery to run down. this condition also causes loud booms. I would not try to recharge.

You are 100 right. If you have ever seen a battery explode you will respect them every time you go near one after that. One time I hooked up a battery charger and started to walk away and got a few feet before I heard a bomb go off. The entire top of the battery hit the ceiling!

As for batteries dying, heat is a major killer of batteries. Here in Florida if you get 3 years you have been going to Church every Sunday. I just had to return under warranty the one in my daily driver. It was about 2 years old.

Don

I think your battery is not getting proper charge.

Originally Posted by Don Dalton

Funny you would mention dead batteries.I have just installed 6 new batteries in my golf cart today. Could not make 1 round without just making it home. I called the golf shop that services my cart and he wanted 120.00 ea + tax for the Trojan brand.I went to Sam's and bought the same battery for(6 V 220 AH SAME CASE DIFFERENT BRAND)for 67.66 + tax.Man they are ripping us old folks off real bad.

It only took me 2 hrs at the most + phone time price shopping and I saved a bundle. In your case you were lucky to be close to a parts store. Did you try to get a boost from some one?

I hate flagging people down to get a jump,plus I have had bad things happen on newer cars with jumping before and the whole exsplosion thing.....I was hesitant to even fiddle with the connections on the old battery,sparks and all when you reconnect them ,but sometimes you just have to try first before spending any money on a new one.

I have a buddy that who runs a battery store and have heard all kinds of tales about how batteries go BOOM.....I try and keep it safe when messin with one.


The last time I used the wrong charger on a sealed battery it ended up looking like a baskett ball instead of square.........

Lead/acid batteries, actually, all batteries, sluff off plate material as they go through their usable life, and the sediment eventually builds up in the bottom of the case to where it shorts out a couple or more plates, effectively "killing" the battery. This process may go along faster or slower, depending on the factors involved in the charge rate/level/voltage, the environment it lives in, and the usage. Yours was probably just on the verge, and you hit a bump or some such and jarred it enough and it finally shorted the plates, so when you shut it off, it was done for. The big batteries we had in our plants were up to 120 cells, and were housed in glass jars, usually in a separate battery room. You could see the sluffing taking place, and we had to measure it and keep track so the battery shop could replace cells as needed. At night, when things were really quiet, you could hear the cells percolating and making small "burps" and bubbles.