flat as a pancake..

[sir moanalot]

got up this morning and the car did not turn over only the dash lights came on. so (luckily) for x-mas got one of these powerpack starters from the missus and boosted the battery and it started fine.
the battery is probably from new (6.5 years old) and is a maintenance free one, without any visible green dot.
i have today replaced it with a 4yr guarantee hd one. if there is no green dot visible in the peep hole is that it for the old battery?
or could i keep it for a spare/ emergency ?

[Markjay]

Green - battery charged
Dark or Black - battery needs charging
Clear or Yellow - battery needs renewal

[Markjay]

Now that you have fitted a new battery, i guess you will soon find out if the problem was with the old battery, in which case it will not happen again, or with an electic drain / faulty alternator, etc... on the plus side, if the problem does re-occur then it would make sense to keep the old battery as spare...

[sir moanalot]

ok so when i looked into the window the sight was black so i may have had a drain from somewhere, the car had not been used for 3 days and b4 it was all ok. where is any drain likely to come from? when i got into it there was no lights left on etc.

[rpont]

An old battery may not be able to hold much current. I'd not worry about it, see how the new one goes but I suspect it's just an old battery.

[Andy B]

.......
where is any drain likely to come from? .......

Just about anywhere, but I've had problems in the past with a short in a ciggy light as did a neighbour with his Ford. They are the right size for kids to poke things into!  
You need to connect up a multimeter to see if there is any appreciable drain from the battery at stand still.

[sir moanalot]

if the new heavy duty on drains ill certainly be getting the test meter out! thank gould i had recently charged up the booster powerpack !!

[Tony H]

If you do decide to keep your old battery as a spare dont forget to charge it regulary or better still just put it on a low amp trickle charger. It may be worth charging it up fully and then take it to an auto factor or the like to do a drop test on it to see if youve got one or more cells down

[sir moanalot]

well... had the new battery on for a while now and not used the car for a week, started it this morning and no problems -so the old battery must have been iffy, it was 6 years old from new though.

[DaveL]

Sounds as though you have cracked it

i've had batteries on previous cars that have lasted way beyond 6 years. in fact the one on my Mondeo is now in its 10th year (birthday party next week).

Trouble with to-days 'modern' batteries is that electrolyte (distilled water/acid) can evaporate from the cells through the top vent. No longer any quick way to re-fill. This is called progress. :-?
8-)
DaveL

[Kevin Wood]

6 years from a battery is probably abour par for the course, especially on a car with the odd electrical toy Depends on the type of driving, like anything else. Lots of short journeys kills them quicker.

Modern batteries tend to fail very suddenly too. I remember my first car had a slightly iffy battery and I kept it going for months by giving it a good charge every so often. Eventually the probability of a bump-start got a bit too high and I changed it.

My last battery failure was when I stopped at a motorway services to get a coffee. 5 mins later tried to re-start car and the starter motor gave a very slight kick, the electrics went dead and the alarm went off.

My cousin recently started his Saab in a supermarket car park and the battery exploded all over the engine bay. Made him jump out of his skin!

RAC bloke who rescued me said it looked like the original battery and that in his experience they all failed after 3 years at the most (we're talking Renault here though). The car was 9 years old.

"Maintenance free" batteries all lose electrolyte like conventional batteries, IME. This is especially true if the under bonnet temperature has been a bit high due to the nature of the vehicle or the weather. It's normally possible to prise open the caps and top up the cells with distilled water just like any other battery. This has to be simple because they are shipped to the retailer without acid on the whole. If you notice them starting to falter a "bat-aid" tablet in each cell sometimes helps but on the whole modern batteries don't seem to give much warning.

Kevin

[TheBoy]

If you have access to TC, 'Go' batteries are very reasonably priced, and hence not worth messing with a battery that is not 100%...

[sir moanalot]

got the battery with a four year guarantee so hopefully that will be worry free for a while! and its a heavy duty!

[TheBoy]

I got one with a 3yr warranty about 2 yrs ago. And I do worry about it, coz its pants.  Keep meaning to dig out receipt and get them to replace it....