How Do You Tell The Battery Is Actually Dead?

tooblue on 21/07/2015 - 16:55

I am no mechanic and know little about cars. And I always follow the manual or what the mechanics ask me to do.

Last year the battery went flat and I called out an RACQ roadside assistant. He told me the battery was 4 years old and gave 0 Volt, even if he jump-started the car the battery wouldn't run long. He convinced me to install a new battery. Luckily I kept the old set.

This year I plugged the old battery in and charged it until the charger said yes. I put the old battery in the car. It's been running for 6 months and never missed a beat. I am now feeling scammed.

What sign shows a battery is dead? What consequence of using a dead battery? Cannot start the car because once the car started, everything is running from engine power? I don't think the car would suddently lose power?

Automotive

Comments

  • nocure on 21/07/2015 - 17:13

    Get yourself a multimeter from supercheap.

  • retiredfeline on 21/07/2015 - 17:27

    What Cheap Charlie said, under load is important. Also car batteries struggle when temperatures are low. Sounds like you may be able to get through this winter, but get them tested next autumn, more so if you hear signs of slower cranking, otherwise you may be caught out when you have an important appointment to get to. 4 years is pretty good actually.

  • BewareOfThe Dog on 21/07/2015 - 17:37

    I had a vehicle that still had the battery in it from 2008. Late last year it started playing up (even though the battery tester said it was ok), but fortunately I had a portable jumpstarter. I waited for batteries to come on special at SCA, & it hasn't skipped a beat.

    My son had what we thought was a faulty battery. We bought a new one. It had issues. All it needed was a good clean, & changing of the terminals that connect the battery to the wires.

  • pointless martyr on 21/07/2015 - 17:47

    Battery should be 12.4-7V at rest. Yes, get a multimeter - $5 job off ebay will do

  • tooblue on 21/07/2015 - 18:11

    Yes, I have a multimeter. I charged the battery for 30 hours till the indicator says full. It reads 13.2V. Is the battery good to go?

    However I didn't find any meter that reads AmpHour. It should be 60AH?

    • pointless martyr on 21/07/2015 - 18:20

      AH is capacity- you only need be concerned with voltage.

      Leave,it overnight and charge will dissipate back to 12.4-7V,if holding charge correctly.

  • 2pro4sho on 21/07/2015 - 18:16

    I thought the title said "How Do You Tell The Bakery Is Actually Dead?"…mmm donuts

  • Baysew on 21/07/2015 - 20:16

    A bit of discussion about the life of a car battery.(https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/190131)

    After all the battery might have just been resting.

  • DarkOz on 23/07/2015 - 08:27

    When you run the car for over half an hour the battery should be charged ready for use the next time. If you have troubles starting the car every day then you know it's really dead or about to die. Otherwise in your case the battery hasn't given you a problem for 6 months so it's good to be used.

    I once put up with my van for 6 months having trouble starting it every morning. Until one day I left the head lights on and killed it.

  • Euphemistic on 23/07/2015 - 08:55

    I've had batteries that will just start the car for a while. you know it's going to die soon as the car is sluggish starting. Then one day, like above you leave something on and that's it. Battery dead, and even overnight charging won't help. Things like leaving the interior light on for a few days in summer usually does it (I only drive my car every few days)

    Having said that, some cars have a smart alternator system that under the 'wrong' conditions won't let a battery charge fully, under the guise of saving fuel. Our pathfinder was sluggish to start on occasion, and then I flattened the battery with a fridge in the back for a couple of hours after an hours freeway driving. The hour drive should have fully charged eye battery and a fully charged battery should have run the fridge for a couple of hours and left enough to start the car, it wouldn't even tick over. Charged the battery with a charger after jump starting and driving it home and it came good again. Roadside service may have tried to sell me a battery in this case. I found out the mod for the car on the Internet. Fixed it and haven't had a drama since, no sluggish starting, no flat battery with the fridge in the car.

  • Daniel Plainview on 11/08/2015 - 13:55

    Lead acid batteries are notoriously difficult to properly gauge the health of - yet they're so common everyone assumes they know them like the back of their hand.

    Multimeter, load tester etc will all be generally INDICATIVE of the health of the battery but the only way to really know if it's fully charged but now has zero capacity is to use a capacitance tester. Many specialist battery outlets e.g Repco, Battery World will have them (worth asking if they KNOW it's a capacitance tester (they'll often have no idea what this even is!)as lots of others still have old-school load testers) and will test for you for free. :-)

  • feisty on 18/08/2015 - 08:28

    Racv did the same to my misses after she left the interior light on. No diagnosis of charging was done. Charged the old battery up when she got home and it was fine. I complained to the racv and they gave her money back. Never collected the new battery. The old battery lasted another 18 months… spoke to an racv man at a function recently who said they are encouraged to sell 3 batteries a shift. Racv use the excuse they are there to get the car up and running asap and are not there to diagnose faults

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