MotorsportsGordon said:When we have our cold spells here I don't use remote start I'll just manually start it. This way I can run it longer and warm it up more plus then I can turn off the headlights which will use up less battery.
I don't think that I can lock the doors on my 09 GMC while it's running with nobody sitting in the drivers seat so then it gets stolen.
VolvoHeretic said:MotorsportsGordon said:When we have our cold spells here I don't use remote start I'll just manually start it. This way I can run it longer and warm it up more plus then I can turn off the headlights which will use up less battery.
I don't think that I can lock the doors on my 09 GMC while it's running with nobody sitting in the drivers seat so then it gets stolen.
I can on my 2010 cobalt
It's not just a temperature or inside/outside problem. Its a combination. Draw + cold temps + sitting in the elements = dead and frozen battery.
Batteries used to be formulated to climate. Hot weather would carry less lead and more acid to combat the heat as they didn't need the CCA of northern climates. It was not uncommon to have a southern car kill a battery in the midwest winter. Freeze a northern battery and its done. It went dead well before it froze.
bobzilla said:It's not just a temperature or inside/outside problem. Its a combination. Draw + cold temps + sitting in the elements = dead and frozen battery.
Batteries used to be formulated to climate. Hot weather would carry less lead and more acid to combat the heat as they didn't need the CCA of northern climates. It was not uncommon to have a southern car kill a battery in the midwest winter. Freeze a northern battery and its done. It went dead well before it froze.
That and southern cars usually won't have a block heater.
In reply to MotorsportsGordon :
Midwest cars don't usually either. In all my years, unless it was a diesel nothing here has one. Although I have been tempted to make one for the manual trans fluid on these below freezing days.
rslifkin said:Pete. (l33t FS) said:FWIW, I found out that our loaner Civic had a remote start.
I found out because the battery would die if the vehicle wasn't loaned out regularly. The remote start itself was drawing around 80ma.
That's an enormous amount of power for a remote start. Even vehicles with tons of fancy electronics typically draw less than that in total once stuff goes to sleep a few minutes after you walk away from the car.
Yes. Yes it is.
I spiked the unit and its mass of wiring after I removed it. Draw went to 8ma afterward.
8 milliamps. No wonder Honda gets away with Group 51 batteries.
rslifkin said:I wouldn't risk trying to salvage that battery. If it's been frozen, as far as I'm concerned, it's scrap. Way too much risk of a shorted cell after that and I wouldn't want to play games with anything that could cause a battery meltdown or explosion (they do happen and they're nasty).
Well you and are are different. I'm not saying wrong. Just different.
Me I'd bring it in. Thaw it out. Pull the caps off and pour the acid into a big glass bowl.
Then I'd clean the lead sulfate out, indoor garden hose? While the lead sulfate settle in the bottom of the glass bowl. Typical 12 hours or so. After that I'd use a Turkey Baster and careful not to suck up any of the white lead sulfate Fill each cell back up. Equally. Top it off with distilled water. I generally get an additional 2-3 years out of that battery.
Yes I'm a cheapskate. It's because I want to vintage race a Jaguar in retirement.
In reply to Charles_Page :
Thanks for the info, but I already had a smart battery charger hooked up to it for over 6 hours. I don't know what that means because it was constantly going through a 5 second cycle of engaging the juice for a second and then immediately shutting off and waiting for the other 4 seconds. I am also NOT going to try and clean out the plates and filter the sulfuric acid - I charge $40per hour just to lay on the couch. And, after already experiencing an exploding battery, I will have my son lift it out of the truck while he is in town for a visit and practice changing out a battery and go buy a brand new one.
In reply to VolvoHeretic :
You cannot charge a dead battery with a smart charger, the voltage is too low and the charger will shut off.
The way to get around that is to connect a charged battery in parallel. The voltage will then be high enough at the charger for it to work.
frenchyd said:Well you and are are different. I'm not saying wrong. Just different.
Me I'd bring it in. Thaw it out. Pull the caps off and pour the acid into a big glass bowl.
Then I'd clean the lead sulfate out, indoor garden hose? While the lead sulfate settle in the bottom of the glass bowl. Typical 12 hours or so. After that I'd use a Turkey Baster and careful not to suck up any of the white lead sulfate Fill each cell back up. Equally. Top it off with distilled water. I generally get an additional 2-3 years out of that battery.
Yes I'm a cheapskate. It's because I want to vintage race a Jaguar in retirement.
If we were talking about a sulfated battery or one that's just tired and I had some time or it was an expensive battery to replace, I'd be inclined to screw with things like that. But a battery that's been frozen has a risk of mechanical damage that can't be seen externally, so in my mind, nothing that could be done within reasonable effort that would accurately determine if there was internal damage that made a failure likely or not.
Turned out to be a timely thread, the forecast is showing temps around -20C tonight and tomorrow night by me, and ventusky is showing the possibility of temps getting down to -25~-27C tomorrow, although it seems to be predicting too cold recently. The Toyobaru's outside under a tarp under a thick layer of snow, if it really does get well below -20C then there could be a risk of the battery freezing solid. It was parked with the battery fully charged and disconnected.
Finally found my metric sockets and wrenches and changed out the DieHard battery with an expensive Walcrap one as well as hard wiring a 1 amp tender charger with the cord sticking out the front next to the block heater plug and both plugged into a 3 way splitter. Now I remember why I hate GM vehicles after having to remove 2 fender braces to reach the battery. Just like the Lumina that had the battery buried under a fender brace and the windshield washer reservoir (or was it the air filter?). I am know warming up the old battery and will see if it takes a charge, the sides don't appear to be ballooned out.
Thanks for all of the help.
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