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Battery recommendation and replacement question

10K views 35 replies 19 participants last post by  OhSix 
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
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.
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.
 
Despite not getting more posts, I'm convinced that a battery voltage for any of these trucks 2 to 3 of days without driving it will be from 12.3 to 12.1 volts.

Due to short trips in town for the most part I will continue keep the air blower on driving on the highway below 60 mph, and I will try to also keep the parking lights on and the blower motor while driving in the city, or town stop and go.

I have driven it without the blower motor on in town and checking the voltage after 24 hrs, it is lower than I would like to see it, if the voltage reads less than 13 volts while driving ( usually 12.5-12.6 V) the battery is not being charged at all, and the computer does not know the 3 amplifiers are on and demanding more voltage.
 
These are great news, thanks guys. And my battery is less than 6 months old, this means that yours behave the same way, being over 2 years old, and apparently AGMs do not seem to hold the voltage significantly higher that conventional batteries.

As mentioned before, I tried leaving the car without the alarm on most of the day with only one door unlocked to keep the led from blinking and that honestly has not significantly improved the situation. Still hard to know if keeping those habits will extend the life of it, sometimes I totally forget to

We have a scion TC that is driven every day but very short trips of less than 12 minutes, different charging system, over 3 years old battery and after a couple of days without used shows 12.3V both my truck and this vehicle are 2006 models.

My daughter has another 2006 smaller scion, no alarm like the other, it was not quite driven every day, the trips were shorter than 20 mins, still with the original battery, after 24 hrs it still holds 12.5 volts, I know it's ready to go since the other day I left the door opened for about an hr while I vacuumed the interior and changed he oil, and it did not start afterwards, I charged it with it with the battery tender and it has been holding well for months, now with a 1 hr commute round trip 4 days per week for over 3 months, still cranking good, she has AAA membership so she wants to wait til it dies, even though I've warned her.
I hope one of these days I won't need to drive 20 miles after picking up a new battery or she plans to go to work In the morning and I'll have to give her a ride to work. :smile:
 
Great observation and experience shared thanks, glad this thread caught your attention, I will keep wondering about the mystery of the 12.3 V resting voltage after 36 hours, there has to be something that pushes it there, maybe a diode as you mentioned, maybe ohsix knows or could find something in the diagrams that can give us some answers. My guess newer cars 06 or newer with alarms and extra accessories may behave the same way.

I was always curious what the timing frame for resting voltage, my thoughts were at least 12 hrs, I could not find any related info on line, defining resting voltage time frame, I came across a general thread where someone said, 3 hrs. Well after 3 hrs I get 12.55 V.

Here is a video for battery maintenance, very old car, got to love the red color negative wire.
Basically says to clean the surface or top since it can conduct charge and may accelerate discharge, I did this with my old battery, got amazing voltage readings after cleaning it but then, even though there was no resistance, the behavior went back to what it was before, and no significant difference.

https://youtu.be/MhnVZ7ZPunw

Added
I don't fully agree with everything said on the video, still a very old school mentality. Most smart chargers can be charging the battery while still connected and have safety features in case of a failure, in fact some guys with
2000 watts systems have their smart chargers connected while giving demos
 
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