I've never heard that of Honda batteries. Most replacement light truck batteries do come with only three-year warranties because of the harsh environment they live in and the excessive bouncing they experience. That knocks the loose lead off the plates faster, so it can be expected it builds up in the bottom of the case faster and will short one of the cells faster. Just about every replacement car battery has a five-year warranty, but a few have six-year warranties, and a few manufacturers offer an inexpensive replacement with a four-year warranty. Those are intended for people making their buying choices strictly on price and not on quality. These batteries are lighter because they have less lead on their plates. They're popular for people planning on selling the car but it needs a new battery first.
Every brand of battery has people who love them and those who would never buy another one. I've had good luck with CarQuest batteries in the past.
I can offer a few other suggestions that are better than buying an expensive battery at retail prices. The first is to visit one of the larger salvage yards. The small ones get the worn-out, high-mileage, low-value cars, and those owners often keep the battery if it is still good. The larger yards buy smashed cars from insurance companies, and those are often only one or two years old. Some sell the batteries for as much as $30.00, but you'll usually find them for around $19.95. You'll typically only get about a 90-day warranty from the yard, and then, if it does fail within that time, they'll just trade it for a different battery. That one would just ride out the remainder of the original 90-day warranty.
For about the last five or six years, I've been buying "reconditioned" batteries from a local battery store. At first they told me those could be batteries that had simply been sitting on the shelf for over a year, and they wanted to get them sold. These cost $30.00 plus the trade-in of the old battery. To make this even better, they were paying $5.00 for every additional "core" battery, so I took in seven altogether, then the new battery didn't cost me any cash. Today the cost of one of these reconditioned batteries is $35.00, and they pay $7.00 per core, so it takes six old batteries to get one new one. Even when you don't have any extra old batteries, $35.00 is a real good deal for a new battery.
Now I've also learned these could be batteries that someone bought, thinking it was going to solve their problem. When they figured out they had misdiagnosed the problem, they want to return the battery for a refund. As far as the store is concerned, that is no longer a "new" battery, and can't be sold as such, but it is still good, so they call it a "reconditioned" battery and sell it at a reduced cost.
I've bought at least eight batteries this way in the last few years and haven't had trouble with any of them. One even went into a skid steer with a diesel engine that's hard to start in cold weather. Two "deep cycle" batteries run a car radio display at an old-car show swap meet every summer. The last one went into my 2014 Dodge truck. It sat all last winter and I let all its computer memory circuits drain the original battery. Not sure if it froze, but in the spring it wouldn't crank the engine. This was a special "absorbed glass mat", (AGM) battery, but they actually did have a reconditioned one available. For my old one, however, they refused to take it in trade unless I took it home and charged it at a slow rate for a minimum of three days, then they'd take it if it tested "bad". This is an unusual characteristic of these batteries, but they were right. After slow-charging for a week, that battery is still working fine two years later. Most other batteries can typically be slow-charged enough in a few hours to get an engine started.
For another exciting chapter to this story, here's a link to an article about how your battery works:
https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-a-car-battery-works
This article covers replacing the battery:
https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-replace-a-car-battery
It makes mention of the electrical ratings, but doesn't explain them. For the most part, domestic car manufacturers do not cut corners on their batteries. You get a lot more battery than you need for the application. Import manufacturers tend to put in just enough battery to get the job done, so when choosing a replacement, at a minimum, you want one at least as strong as the original. With domestic vehicles, it is usually okay to buy one that is smaller, electrically, than the original battery. That's what I did with my truck, and it's performing just fine.
The first two things to look at are physical characteristics. The outside of the case has to be of the correct dimensions to fit in place, and it can't be too high that the posts will be hit by the hood. Some cars have enough room to accommodate a battery that is an inch or two longer, but that could mean you're buying more battery than you need, at a wasted higher cost.
Next you have to look at how the battery is held in place. That's important to prevent it from bouncing excessively, which will knock that loose lead off faster and hasten the eventual failure. Some batteries are held down with a metal or plastic strap that sits on top of the battery. Some use a small metal plate that sits in a groove near the bottom of the case. A lot of replacement batteries can be bolted down either way. If you're buying the battery from a salesman, he will select the right case size and style for your car.
There's basically two electrical ratings to look at. The main one is "cold cranking amps", (CCA). Some batteries list their "cranking amps", but that rating is not standardized between manufacturers. Cold cranking amps is a measure of how much current the battery can supply, at 0 degrees Fahrenheit, while maintaining a minimum of 9.6 volts for 15 seconds. That is standardized, so it is accurate for comparing batteries from different manufacturers. The common original batteries for import cars is from 350 to 500 CCA. Even my 1980 Volare came with a tiny 325 CCA battery, and it handled the job just fine for over five years. Most domestic cars today come with batteries of around 600 to 750 CCA. Anything higher than that is basically a waste because that kind of power just isn't needed. In fact, if you were to drop down to a 500 CCA battery for those applications, it would work perfectly fine. You can find replacement batteries as high as 850 to over 1000 CCA, but for a car, that's just showing off. Those are good choices for trucks with diesel engines. Those trucks usually come with two batteries because it takes a real lot of cranking power to get them started in cold weather.
The second rating is the battery's "reserve capacity". That's a measure of how long it can run a light load, such as the radio, before its voltage drops to a specific value. I'm not aware of any standardization for that rating, so it's more for comparing two or more batteries from the same manufacturer. This rating has little value to car owners who just need it to start the engine.
I should add a paragraph, for the benefit of others who might be researching this topic, that some car manufacturers have purposely designed-in tricks to make their dealers money. Volkswagen is one of the most noteworthy, along with Audi, BMW, and I've heard, GM. On some of their models, simply removing a battery cable, whether to replace the battery, clean the connections, or for some other service that requires this to be done, will cause multiple computer to lock up. The only fix for that is to tow the car to the dealer where they can unlock them. With some VW models, we've heard the horror stories where even if the engine starts, it will only idle, and won't come out of "park". Pressing the accelerator pedal has no effect on engine speed. The car has to be dragged out of the shop and onto a flat-bed truck for the trip to the dealership where they will use their proprietary equipment to unlock the computers. Two of these that we learned about in a very high-level training class for mechanics from independent repair shops cost those owners over $950.00 by the time the cars were driveable again, . . . just from disconnecting the battery cable.
To avoid this problem, there are all kinds of "memory saver" devices on the market. They get connected just like your battery tender, but they supply a little more current to keep all the computers alive and unlocked. The only things to watch out for is it doesn't accidentally become disconnected, and you can't open a door or turn on the ignition switch. Doing either of those will cause more current to be needed than those devices can supply. The battery installer used one on my truck even though the only memory it saved was the clock on the radio. He just wanted to be safe.
My last comment of value has to do with the "juicy rings" or sprays some sales people will try to sell you. Those have no value for most of us. After ten years at the dealership, and watching my own batteries, what I finally figured out was any battery that had plenty of life left in it never developed the characteristic white corrosion around the posts, so those chemical treatments weren't necessary. And, when you did find that corrosion, that battery was going to fail naturally within six months, and there was nothing you could do to prevent that. Cleaning the connections of that corrosion can solve intermittent electrical problems, but it's not going to extend the life of the battery.
It appears that as the lead flakes off the plates over time, which can't be avoided, there is less and less on the plates, yet the charging system keeps right on charging the battery as if it was at full strength. With the same amount of current flowing through less lead to absorb the electrons, those plates get hotter than normal, and that tends to boil the acid. The bubbles that creates pop right under the top of the case, then the liquid deposited there migrates to the terminals where they come through the top as the posts. It's that acid that causes that corrosion. Good batteries have more lead in their plates to absorb the electrons, so that current flow has less tendency to heat up the acid and cause those bubbles to form. There's nothing for those juicy rings to neutralize. In fact, even the chemical in those rings can find its way between the posts and cable clamps and cause intermittent problems. The best advice is when you finally see that white corrosion building up, expect to need a new battery in a few months.
Tuesday, November 12th, 2019 AT 5:35 PM
