[JakiChan]

So the RL is about 4 years old, and spends a fair time sitting. I finally put in a stereo and I think I want to replace/upgrade the battery. I'm looking at this:

https://www.batteriesplus.com/battery/car-and-truck/honda/ridgeline/2012/v6-3.5l-550cca/sli24fagmdp

Which seems to be a re-branded Northstar, which gets great reviews. I'm wondering if anyone else has run this battery?

Also, when I disconnect the battery is there anything I need to do or reset once it's reconnected aside from the audio system?

 

[ridged]

I have a Northstar with very similar specs and it has performed as expected. I chose it because my vehicle sat inactive for long periods of time during winter and to handle the extra load of an electric lift for a handicapped loved one.

 

[optimus29]

I have no problem with my yellow top optima battery
. purchased it last winter.. The red top died to quick!!

 

[northernlights]

Way to expensive, I just put in my third battery in 11 and a half years. #1 OEM got 6.5 years, #2 was a NAPA got 5 years and just replaced #2 with #3 same battery because of age and very cold temps comin. $120 bucks never had issues with any except #1 OEM that I let drain down to were you get all the funcky lights flasin. 750cca to not a 550.

 

[John32070]

This is what I'll be going with next time; Super Start Platinum 34RPLT - Battery | O'Reilly Auto Parts

Of course, I work here, so I'll get it even cheaper :wink:

 

[BigFatDog]

I run a D35 yellow top Optima. I bought Ridgeline used in '11 and put a D35 in very soon after. I just replaced it this week.

 

[Drzew2020]

I have been looking at the Bosch S6 AGM battery list $192 on sale 25% off PeP Boys Auto free install

 

[FauxTrk]

Putting a deep cycle battery in a car isn't always the best choice, and is almost pointless unless your frequently charging and discharging your battery (which would make your alternator very sad)

The platinum battery mentioned is a good choice, as is any quality automotive battery. I must agree, go with O'Reilly Auto Parts!

 

[Drzew2020]

The O'reilly platinum is a deep cycle battery ??

 

[FauxTrk]

No, but it is AGM. Meaning, rather than having lead cells flooded in acid, a mat made out of a glass derived fiber is soaked in the electrolyte. These batteries hold and dissipate heat better because of the mat in between the plates.
Deep cycle isn't a good choice in most vehicles, as your vehicle battery is meant to have a constant full charge (or close to it) and not be "cycled" to discharge regularly.

 

[smufguy]

I have always had good luck with Duralast Gold from Autozone. 750CCA and 935CA. The OEM battery lasted for 2 years and Duralast has been going strong for the last 4.5 years. The Battery also has a 5-year warranty.

 

[John32070]

About a week after I made my post about the Platinum battery I checked mine and the tester said bad and as we were about to have a few mornings of below 0 temps I made the change. One thing that I learned is you may have to loosen one of the cables (make a little longer) as the Platinum sits a tiny bit taller.

 

[laserguy]

After 3 days or more without starting the engine or charging the battery, the voltage barely holds 12 volts, not sure what will qualify discharging or if it means the voltage dropping below 12 volts.

AGM batteries can hold voltage above 12.5 volts better than standard batteries.


I would be interested to know what voltage reading most ridgeline owners get out of their batteries after 2 days without driving, charging or starting the engine.

Also disclosing if owning a standard or AGM battery, when providing the voltage readings, between 24 and 48 hours would be a good time to check it. Mine seems to drop below 12.5 after 36 hours and sometimes after 24 hours depending on how long it was driven the day before.


Nothing beats Northstar batteries, Sears used to sell a Northstar battery under their name at a good price.
Now they only have a DEka or platinum that seems to indicate is the same as the AGM one from oreillys

 

[Carsmak]

After 3 days or more without starting the engine or charging the battery, the voltage barely holds 12 volts, not sure what will qualify discharging or if it means the voltage dropping below 12 volts.

AGM batteries can hold voltage above 12.5 volts better than standard batteries.


I would be interested to know what voltage reading most ridgeline owners get out of their batteries after 2 days without driving, charging or starting the engine.

Also disclosing if owning a standard or AGM battery, when providing the voltage readings, between 24 and 48 hours would be a good time to check it. Mine seems to drop below 12.5 after 36 hours and sometimes after 24 hours depending on how long it was driven the day before.


Nothing beats Northstar batteries, Sears used to sell a Northstar battery under their name at a good price.
Now they only have a DEka or platinum that seems to indicate is the same as the AGM one from oreillys

Laserguy,

I can do it the next time I'm on call. My truck will sit for the week then, 2/3-2/10/17. I can even put it in a garage and bring the Del Sol to work for the week so I'm not tempted to drive it at lunch and screw up the Test. :grin:

Carsmak

 

[laserguy]

Laserguy,

I can do it the next time I'm on call. My truck will sit for the week then, 2/3-2/10/17. I can even put it in a garage and bring the Del Sol to work for the week so I'm not tempted to drive it at lunch and screw up the Test. :grin:

Carsmak

Hey! That will be great to know thanks. I hope others can do the same, even a 24 hr resting voltage reading would be good, since now in the winter even in California, it may be normal to have 12.3V or less for older batteries, as long as it holds 12V after a week or enough to start, that is important.

Lately I have been monitoring the voltage while driving, and the Honda charging system seems to keep it above 14 most of the time due to colder weather would be my guess, since I drive very short single trips and not long trips often, I tend to keep my headlights on, this keeps the charging system to drop to 12.5V for city driving or under 60mph, city or highway driving. We covered this in another thread, my guess is, when the voltage drops to 12.5 while driving the battery is not fully charged, and maybe just enough for the charging system to determine it is ok to drop it to 12.5V, all this is to prevent the alternator to charge it more often, and saving 0.0xx miles per gallon that only adds savings for global or US gas and oil consumption, and not significantly to our home budgets or pockets.

Does this reduce the battery life by not fully charging it or driving in the city with 12.5-7 volts 80% of the time? That is the question, some car manufacturers (in some ways) meet the US demands for gas consumption at our expense of more frequent battery replacements.

 

[OhSix]

Laserguy,

I can do it the next time I'm on call. My truck will sit for the week then, 2/3-2/10/17. I can even put it in a garage and bring the Del Sol to work for the week so I'm not tempted to drive it at lunch and screw up the Test. :grin:

Carsmak

Hey! That will be great to know thanks. I hope others can do the same, even a 24 hr resting voltage reading would be good, since now in the winter even in California, it may be normal to have 12.3V or less for older batteries, as long as it holds 12V after a week or enough to start, that is important.

Lately I have been monitoring the voltage while driving, and the Honda charging system seems to keep it above 14 most of the time due to colder weather would be my guess, since I drive very short single trips and not long trips often, I tend to keep my headlights on, this keeps the charging system to drop to 12.5V for city driving or under 60mph, city or highway driving. We covered this in another thread, my guess is, when the voltage drops to 12.5 while driving the battery is not fully charged, and maybe just enough for the charging system to determine it is ok to drop it to 12.5V, all this is to prevent the alternator to charge it more often, and saving 0.0xx miles per gallon that only adds savings for global or US gas and oil consumption, and not significantly to our home budgets or pockets.

Does this reduce the battery life by not fully charging it or driving in the city with 12.5-7 volts 80% of the time? That is the question, some car manufacturers (in some ways) meet the US demands for gas consumption at our expense of more frequent battery replacements.

Guys,

06 has been sitting since Saturday so she's a few days into parasitic drain. Optima Yellow Top was installed last year - I'll sneak a peek at battery level tonight. Mak, record battery age if you can.

FYI:

The graphs and charts below were generated from logs captured with Torque app.
Sensor sweep = 1 sec interval.
When ELD is engaged, batt receives < ~12.9 V approximately 40% of the time. > ~ 12.8 V approximately 60% of the time.
ELD is "off" when constant/steady state current is demanded (fans, head lights, power window motor, ETC)
ELD *may be* triggered when intermittent demand (such as an audio amp) pulls reference voltage below minimum threshold.

AGM and wet cell batts recover well from relatively frequent SoC ~ 20%. Tolerance and recovery curves change significantly when SoC is chronically held @ 10% or below. But ELD doesn't let that happen.
These graphs may be misleading in the sense that with ELD engaged, it appears the battery spends ~35% of its time @ a 30% SoC - it's important to know the duration of that level averages 50 seconds or less before alternator slams the batt with 15 sec jolt of 13.2V. The longest duration batt spends around 11.5 V is ~ 2.5 minutes (158 sec)

And then there's the evidence that many RL owners (me included) regularly experience 5 year battery life.

Sample of raw file:

ELECTRIC LOAD *DETECTOR
Back to the ELD we *mentioned earlier, this simple device located in the fuse box monitors the vehicle’s electrical load and improves fuel mileage by turning off the alternator when loads are low. Don’t confuse it with the internal voltage regulator in the *alternator. The ECM on late-model computer-controlled cars will send reference voltage of approximately 4.5 volts to the ELD unit, then the ELD will pull this voltage down depending on the load. With no load, there will be about 3.5 volts on the signal wire telling the ECM to ground the control wire (terminal 2 white/green wire) at the *alternator/regulator, and turn off the alternator without turning on the dash charge indicator. As the load increases, the reference signal is pulled lower toward one volt, informing the ECM to stop grounding the control wire and let the alternator charge as needed.
Honda Electrical System Diagnostics

 

[OhSix]

Laserguy,

I can do it the next time I'm on call. My truck will sit for the week then, 2/3-2/10/17. I can even put it in a garage and bring the Del Sol to work for the week so I'm not tempted to drive it at lunch and screw up the Test. :grin:

Carsmak

Hey! That will be great to know thanks. I hope others can do the same, even a 24 hr resting voltage reading would be good, since now in the winter even in California, it may be normal to have 12.3V or less for older batteries, as long as it holds 12V after a week or enough to start, that is important.

Lately I have been monitoring the voltage while driving, and the Honda charging system seems to keep it above 14 most of the time due to colder weather would be my guess, since I drive very short single trips and not long trips often, I tend to keep my headlights on, this keeps the charging system to drop to 12.5V for city driving or under 60mph, city or highway driving. We covered this in another thread, my guess is, when the voltage drops to 12.5 while driving the battery is not fully charged, and maybe just enough for the charging system to determine it is ok to drop it to 12.5V, all this is to prevent the alternator to charge it more often, and saving 0.0xx miles per gallon that only adds savings for global or US gas and oil consumption, and not significantly to our home budgets or pockets.

Does this reduce the battery life by not fully charging it or driving in the city with 12.5-7 volts 80% of the time? That is the question, some car manufacturers (in some ways) meet the US demands for gas consumption at our expense of more frequent battery replacements.

Optima Yellow Top.
Less than 1 year old.
Truck last driven mid-day Sunday 1/8
Measurement taken 1/11 8 AM
12.29 V = state of charge approximately 65%
Keep in mind rate of self discharge + parasitic drain is not linear, meaning 35% below 100% after 3 days does not mean batt will decline ~10% /day.

 

[Kootbiker1]

I bought the cheapest battery I could find, it was at Walmart. So far it has outlasted the original and it is cold where I live, cold weather is the best test for a battery.

 

[laserguy]

Optima Yellow Top.
Less than 1 year old.
Truck last driven mid-day Sunday 1/8
Measurement taken 1/11 8 AM
12.29 V = state of charge approximately 65%
Keep in mind rate of self discharge + parasitic drain is not linear, meaning 35% below 100% after 3 days does not mean batt will decline ~10% /day.

Thanks for this! And the previous post, the link shared is very informative for the ones wanting to know and understand better the Honda charging system. The charts will take me some time to analyze and understand.

I tend to think, just like it was mentioned on the link that anything connected directly to the battery will not make the charging system, react or maintain a voltage above 14V, since with 1/0 gauge wire and 3 amps on and playing loud, the ELD won't kick to high Voltage charge and stays at 12.6-7 volts.

I get, 12.3 V rested voltage after a day or within 24 hours, after 20-25 min of city driving the previous day, if I drove it for longer than 30 mins, I get 12.5V, and 2 plus days without driving it, just 12.10 V just recently and about 45 degree temperatures at night.

It's within the normal range for thiese trucks, I was worried that dropping below 12.3 was not OK, but it may be normal, sometimes when I park outside I only activate the alarm for 8-10 hrs at night, and that does not seem to help much with the readings, the drop after a full charge has to do with the electronics and constant voltage needed for clock radio memory and other accessories computers etc, that need the power.

Let's hope to get some more readings at different times from other owners, just to see if trucks with full factory equipment and no external amps offer similar readings.

Got a tip, not sure it will help but I will continue to use it on my short trips. Blower motor on, and parking lights on, keeps voltage at 14Volts, at least I do not have to have only the headlights on, and reduce their life, I'm not sure I will extent the battery life beyond 6 years or make it worse, the best way is to drive it for more than 30 mins every day would me my guess, since I got 8 years minimum of battery life with older cars and driven over 12000 miles per year, and much older, pre 95, my guess is if batteries back then took a constant 14 volt charge, and lasted that much for my area, maybe that extra step with this truck, may help to get an extra 2 years out of the batteries.
One thing, if I plan to not drive it for more than 3 days, i may leave a smart charger or float charger connected to it.

 

[SK17touring]

I bought the cheapest battery I could find, it was at Walmart. So far it has outlasted the original and it is cold where I live, cold weather is the best test for a battery.

Probably an Ever Ready. Made by Johnson Controls. That is something to look for in a battery. Made by Johnson = good.