Cold cranking amps

Ours, a few days back. It's a 4.5 year old Optima yellow top, rated 450 CCA:



The 2.5 was maybe 250??

 

$200 is cheap for these batteries compared to some of the prices I've seen. Him charging for an hour of work isn't really that bad considering he has to take the rear seat apart to replace the battery underneath it.
But as mentioned above, advance/napa/auto zone/pep boys will do it for free... they may just not be as experienced with it as they probably don't do it as often on the C, so you may end up having to buy some clips when they're done.

 

I forgot about that. Yeah best to leave it to someone experienced.

 

Mendel , I have the same tester and have a battery for my whole house generator I need to test.
Found the battery dead when the generator didn't start when we lost electric.
I will have to read the directions again, it's been a while.

 

The same considerations apply as for a (non-hybrid) car battery application.
The generator should have a battery "tender" built in and you need to check that voltage after you get a new battery.
The new battery needs to be fully charged BEFORE being installed.

Since the generator is "out of sight, out of mind", this is an excellent place for an AGM battery........since a conventional battery will go dry if not checked often.

Do you run the gen to exercise it once a month or so ??
You really should......for several reasons.

IF......this is a conventional wet cell type battery and you look in the cells and they are bone dry......there probably is not much point in trying to test it.

 

The generator has a built in battery charger and it isn't working. I have heard of problems of over charging and I will find out when the repair guy shows up, it is under a 5 year warranty. We will see how good the warranty is soon.
This is the second battery and Kohler recommends replacing them every 4 years. The original didn't last that long but I did take a lightning strike and who knows what happened to it. I was thinking about an AGM battery but if this one is bad I will get it replaced under the three year free replacement. The original battery was 15 days over the three year warranty, the luck of the Irish. The battery is in my garage and has been off the charger for over 24 hours. Now I need to check it's voltage and use my tester like Mendel has to see if it is good and see what the CCA is.

 

The Solar BA5 has 3 options, OK, CHARGE and FAIL. Any battery that's been sitting a long while will likely be a CHARGE case, basically: it seems viable, but needs a recharge to be sure.

 

I suspect that the generator company probably scrimps on it's battery charger.
It might be a cheap, unregulated "trickle charger" which will eventually "boil" a conventional battery dry if you don't check it often.

If that is the case, a good battery tender could be connected in it's place.

 

Before I would replace that, I would put a trickle charger on it and see if that will charge it.

 

Even if it does, if the battery stayed at 10 V for more than a couple of hours, it likely still needs to be replaced.
Even if it does appear to charge up again, it might not HOLD the charge very long.

 

But without a recharge, the owner won't know. Better to have the data than just toss in a new battery that might not be needed.

I have rescued a few "dead" batteries with a Battery Tender.

 

It depends mostly on the battery's age and how it was treated in the past.
IF.....it is 4 years old or more
OR it lives where it is VERY hot for much of the year
OR there have been other "episodes" of deep discharge..............
Then the odds are against getting much more useful service out of it and it might leave you stranded out on the road somewhere.
It is a gamble that many people shouldn't take.

 

This is exactly what I needed echo'd back. A new recommended battery is around $100 at Walmart and I'm seeing a 12v simple SLA Mighty Max Battery for $14 from Amazon. I've ordered it and hopefully, it'll do the trick. I'll update in a couple of weeks.

 

Is this to replace your auxiliary battery? What is its Ah capacity? Looks like it is not an AGM battery.

 

Might be 1.3 lol.

12V SLA Batteries Archives - MightyMaxBattery

 

This one is an AGM battery. You are right @Mendel Leisk, with 1.3 AH, it barely can last 10 minutes for a pair of typical headlight bulbs. Better to avoid staying at ACC and/or IGN-ON mode long. Good luck!

 

Close, "
ML1.3-12 - 12 Volt 1.3 AH, F1 Terminal, Rechargeable SLA AGM Battery
"

Well I guess the alternator will be spinning away then ‍♂️

Just ordered a "NOCO GENIUS1, 1A Automatic Smart Charger, 6V and 12V Portable Automotive Car Battery Charger, Battery Maintainer, Float Charger, Trickle Charger and Battery Desulfator with Temperature Compensation"

In hopes that it may salvage my old SLA

 

Huh? There is no alternator.

A 55 A-hr MightyMax (or other-brand equivalent) general-purpose AGM like PriusCamper suggested would work well, assuming it can be made to physically fit and is vented. So does my $65, 35 A-hr one. But, you have to be joking about using a tiny $14, 1.3 A-hr version.

 

The dealer doesn't have the Liberty to tinker with something to see if it will work or be reliable. It is demanded and utterly expected that a dealer will guarantee something to be 100% reliable when it leaves their facility. You went to the people that operate by the gold standard. If you wanted to tinker you should do that yourself. But you need to understand a dealership doesn't have that Liberty. Cars break. When cars break it's because parts wore out. We replaced parts. That's what we do. You went to the dealership with broken parts. They install new ones. That's how this works. You want to tinker with something and have it unreliable and leave you stranded on the side of the road that's on you but the dealer cannot do that. That's why you got a new battery.

 

If there is no alternator then how does the SLA get recharged or not run out then?