Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Who makes a lousy car battery?

What is a Thelma tester? Load tester?

My girlfriend goes through a lot of batteries.

first, I'm not a mechanic.

I do buy trucks and drive them a long time.

If you are running down a battery, it could be:

• battery
• bad cables (corrosion all the way through)
• bad alternator (brushes, VR, whatever)
• starter going out (electrical or mechanical)
• short somewhere

there may be a way to figure out each of these on your own. (I don't know it)

my best luck has been with a good auto electric place.

they can put clamps on your ground and positive wires while you start it and tell you what the problem is.

WM batteries have worked well for us in several vehicles.

Turns out the battery was indeed bad. Took it to Les Schwab for their free battery test and their little computer said it was "bad". The guy didn't give any detailed explanation of what exactly was wrong with it, just "sometimes it happens". Anyway, they gave me a new one under warranty, in and out in 25 minutes.

I'll monitor the engine starting response for a while but it seems that all's well that ends well, plus I learned a couple of new things about car batteries from this thread so thanks for everybody's contributions.

Schwab has rapidly and seriously gone down hill since old man Schwab died a few years ago. The bean counters will have it run into the ground within a decade.

Has no one said to check the water in it?

Still have your alternator checked. If the battery went bad it was for a reason. A bad alternator can kill a battery.

And vice versa

Les Schwab's reputation is taking a beating but my partner bought a set of new E tires from them this spring. It's an off brand name but they said they're US made Coopers. Where he lives, they're still the best for service and warranty. The tires look pretty good and he says they're very quiet. He said he ended up spending about $100 more for them but figures it's worth it for the service.

napa batteries have been made by exide for years.

btw interstate doesn't make batteries, johnson controls makes theirs.

These used to be my go to marine batteries when we had a Sams.

Right on

Johnson Controls no longer makes batteries either.

Made by East Penn.

As are these I Bought from NAPA.

https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/NBP8301

Turns out the starter was the problem all along. The original battery was also bad as well but that was a red herring in this case.

It died on me Monday afternoon, just wouldn't turn over at all. As luck would have it I was parked at a convenience store literally 150 yards from the car repair shop I've patronized for many years. Walked over there and the guy walked back with me with a portable jump starter. He verified that the new battery was fully charged so we figured it had to be the starter.

Felt kind of silly loading it up on the tow truck just to haul it across the street and down one block but it would have been awfully dangerous to push it along that busy street. Anyway, they ordered the part Monday afternoon and installed it Tuesday morning. Even though it was listed as a three hour job they had it in before lunch and changed my oil as well. When I turned the key it gave that familiar energetic cranking and started right up.

Big shout out to Pro Auto Care on Broadway Ave, Boise. They've taken good care of this vehicle for the last 17 years. This job wasn't cheap but I'm confident it was done well and at a reasonable price - guaran-damn-teed it would have been a hell of a lot more at a Honda dealer.

i stand corrected, sort of. the same plants make them but jci sold the battery div in 2019. the retirement checks don't bounce, though.

What I've found over the years is that vehicle battery life specs are optimistic, presumably best case scenario. I've had so many batteries go dead with less than a year left on their "warranty" that for the past several years I've just bought "5 year" batteries from reputable companies with the plan to replace them after 4 years, not bothering with the "warranty." Less stress that way.

Interesting.

I just checked the Tacoma. Installed 1-2017. So 4+ years already. Still starts the truck every time so far. And it sat a bunch this winter. Only put about 1K miles on the studs this year, due to health issues and not putting in for an AZ javelina tag, so it's not like it's getting charged frequently.

Of course, once a year the lids get pulled and distilled water added as needed. And cable ends etc cleaned with baking soda water mixture.

The Tacoma takes one relatively large for it's engine, or I switched to a larger one (old trick). This one is a 24F with 700CCA and 850 total for a 2.7L 4 cyl.

Wife took off to town in the Matrix, again I think that has a 24F that's 5 or so years old already. We get a bit colder up here than where flintlocke is, down around zero every year and still freezing at night. But, maybe more importantly, we rarely get over 100F.

Used to use the old Sears Die Hard. I'm like the poster that mentioned Wal Marts being everywhere. Used to be that way with sears. Got a lot of tires and batteries from them. Now I do Schwabies because they're local here and an awful lot of places we go. Nearest Wally's is 100 miles away.

Just buy a Deka and be done with it.

Napa used to be good but lately, they would only make good boat anchors. I bought them in a rush a couple years ago for one of my excavators and since then they have been replaced twice each (2 batteries in the excavator) under warranty. When the warranty finally ends, those will be replaced with Deka's