New car battery

[Hotrodder]

I can't imagine how much a new starter will cost for one of those things considering how much better quality it needs to be to survive the much higher duty cycle.

[Liz]

Nothing lasts as long as we think it used to, car batteries included.
Jeez, buying a new one for the van recently took me ages, having set amperage range then:
First, dimensions
Second, check which side polarity
Third, avoid stop start,
Fourth, recheck anything which apparently confirms to my requirements and ditch a load of them.
Drink coffee.
Take dogs for a walk.
Repeat process et voilà, get a different set of choices and choose the right one
Battery delivered to the door, old one correctly disposed of at the tip when I was going that way.

[niemeyjt]

Out of interest - are they negative or positive earth?

[RobertArthur]

@ Beejay, no, not a start/stop version for this 2010 4-cylinder Mitsubishi Mivec engine, last of the Outlander fuel Mohicans. For the Hyundai I10 of the OH I had to replace the original start/stop battery, almost nine years old. The Hyundai dealer's price was around € 235, a bit too much. For € 129 I bought a Yuasa AGM battery. Promise: up to 360,000 engine starts. Switching off the start/stop function and it should be alive and kicking in 2123....

A car (2013) not yet overloaded with electronics, alarm systems, infotainment systems etc.. To be on the safe side I connected a little auxiliary 12 Volt battery with crocodile clips to the car wiring, no resetting needed.

Niemeyjt, I used to have a rather heavy old style charger. also supporting 24 Volt. The new one from Lidl, much smaller and fully automatic, has several clever functions. Charging AGM/gel batteries is one of the options, also 12 Volt regular and 12 Volt deep cycle.

[Hotrodder]

I thought positive earth finally became extinct in the late 50's.

[RobertArthur]

Goodbye to the old Hyundai battery. Out of curiosity I fully charged this AGM battery. Looked healthy, 100% full, 12.7 Volts. One should not judge by appearances: under load the voltage dropped rapidly to 7 Volts and below. After this 6 seconds test the capacity measurement of the charger was: 61% full.




I should have known better: already in November 2021 my OBD2 reader warned me for possible battery problems, starting the engine produced a considerable voltage drop. A dip lower than 8.5 volts and you better replace the battery. Had no problems starting the engine, but a nominal voltage of below 12 volts was of course not a good sign. Seeing and hearing is believing I thought, the engine starts almost immediately, don't you worry, keep smiling, perhaps the scanner is in a pessimistic mood today.

[L Austin France]

I thought positive earth finally became extinct in the late 50's.

Seems like Flat Earth might be making a comeback.

[niemeyjt]

I thought positive earth finally became extinct in the late 50's.

It lasted into the 60s - the era of Liz's Moggies

[Liz]

I thought positive earth finally became extinct in the late 50's.

It lasted into the 60s - the era of Liz's Moggies

Yup, that's about right!!!!!

[Hotrodder]

My first UK car was an early Mini and I happened to mention to my mechanical wizard neighbour what a faff it was trying to make an isolation housing to fit a negative earth cassette player into the positive earth car. He said don't bother, and explained how to make the changes necessary to change the car over to Neg earth. The bit about "flashing" the dynamo to reverse its polarity was scary but all the rest was easy. I learned a huge amount from that guy.