How Long Can a Battery Last?

[Mater]

the battery in the 97 GT is from when the car was built by GM so 15 years?

[Barry Donovan]

I bought my Caprice from the salvage yard and they gave me a battery that I guess came in a car that was junked. That was 2001. I just replaced it.

Battery life is dependent on a ton of things from battery draw when the car isn't used from like alarms and such; how good the charging system is; etc.

If your truck is starting up every time without issue, I'd worry about other things.

good ignition switches out there.
my own with a .67 volt bleed still goes the months indicated for battery.

little car gets a little one. 60 months? 5 years seems a routine. going beyond it and staying good battery..they must got something right going on there.

[pdub]

Okay, Bubba's got a new battery. The best they had at Auto Zone. I said best ya got and the dude said you don't want the best we have. I asked why not. He said it's expensive.

I asked is it better? Dude said yeah, it's better, but....I said put it in.

Nobody's bet how much it was. I guess we don't have a betting crowd here...

[Pumpkin]

$229.99?

[TheSilverBuick]

Duralast Gold's are my battery of choice. Worked 3 years at Autozone and still have that opinion.

[pdub]

$229.99?

In the parking lot at the ballpark, but high.

[Mater]

$180

[pdub]

$180

DING! $178.

Sue Unit turned blue when I told her. FOR A BATTERY?!?!?!

Uh...yeah. 8 more years, maybe.

Good shot Mater!

pdub

[Bill McGuire]

The "aging" process in lead-acid batteries is almost exclusively sulfation, so if you keep a float charger on the vehicle you can extend the battery's life almost indefinitely. There's not much else to deteriorate or "wear out."

You can get as expensive and complicated with float chargers as you like, but I buy them on sale at Harbor Freight for under ten bucks each and leave them on all my vehicles, and they work just fine. I've never had any trouble with any float chargers. The circuitry is very simple.

The other killer of lead-acid automotive batteries is extreme variation in temperature... and oddly perhaps, heat is generally far worse than cold. Late-model cars can run very high underhood temperatures, which is absolute death on the battery and one reason the OEs have relocated them under the rear seat and elsewhere in recent years. These 100+ degree days this summer have killed as many batteries as anything. One more excuse (along with mass distribution and packaging) to go to a trunk-mounted battery in your rod.

[Beagle]

frozen when discharged is a death sentence for a lead acid battery. Didn't the Brits used to use NiMH batteries or something? I remember my dad's stories of the brits trading in cars but keeping their battery.

[pdub]

I didn't know that about heat killing them. Maybe I acted just in time, and it's a wonder it didn't die last month, with that in mind. I didn't want to find out how long it would go.

Kinda like driving Red - I didn't mind finding out what Red wouldn't do on a long straightaway, but I never want to find out what Red won't do in a curve!

[Dan Barlow]

When i have more than one car per person, I run them till they die.

[Gary 351C]

See now! Talking about batteries is bad luck! The wife wakes me out of a dead sleep this morning, "My car won't start"

DEAD BATTERY!!! . .

[JOES66FURY]

the Optima Red Top in my old ram was 11 years old when I got rid of the truck...well worth the 120 bucks I paid for it.

The Mopar battery in the wifes truck lasted 3 years.


hit or miss I think.

[Deaf Bob]

The one in the 57 seems to need replacing every 2-4 years... Same alt as in the 77 flatbed... Flatbed's got a screwed stud on top.. Group 31?... Got it out of the local International dealer's battery core box about 12 years ago..
I guess it " just depends"
The flatbed gets driven harder and more..