Am I missing something?

[Uncle Gump]

I think I need to clarify something.

My truck has sat many times for more the 4 or 5 days. I work from home most days anymore so sitting 4 or 5 days is commonplace. Hell... when my mother comes to visit... it has probably sat for a month or more without being started. It typically fires right up... except like 3 or 4 times that it didn't. Each of those times it has ended with a battery replacement. The only thing that is consistent when it doesn't start... it's always during the winter. I couldn't get that lucky to have it fail when it's 75 and sunny.

This is why I have a hard time thinking it's a parasitic draw. A battery draining parasitic draw I feel would be pretty consistent. I would be jump starting this truck nearly everytime I use it.

I'm going to pay closer attention to my charging voltages. Maybe it's cooking the batteries?

 

[RobbieD]

You may not be driving it enough to properly charge the battery.

 

[Uncle Gump]

You may not be driving it enough to properly charge the battery.

if that were the case... I would constantly jumping the battery.... no?

 

[bobbywalter]

Dunno where y'all are buying batteries but I can get at least 5 or 6 years out of them. I would consider that totally normal lifespan. The AGM battery in my crawler is from 2012... Autozone AGMs are great. I keep damn near everything on a maintainer though. Most of my normal lead acid batteries come from Walmart, I get the Everstart Max or whatever the good one is called. Great batteries. The cheap ones from Walmart are shit though. Year at most before they are dead.

Sometimes you can bring dead ones back to life by leaving them on a trickle charger for a few weeks. Those little $5 trickle chargers from Harbor Freight are great for that. I have the battery out of my dad's truck in my shop now - it sat stone dead in the driveway for months and was drained down to like 2v. I let the truck idle for an hour and then drove it 30 miles and it still was dead. Took the battery out and put it on trickle for a few weeks - now it shows full charge and tests perfect with my load tester.

Maintainers FTW.

with the batteries remote mounted..
my gm setup does not get along with the agm....the previous g3 seemed a non issue.... frustrating. changing my ground scenario put the numbers good and i never retrofitted the g3 stuff.

though i looked at the silicone dioxide units because i just dont like fluid batteries for situations where the rig may not be level-ish. winching hard with the lead acid at 30 degrees is not a good way to keep them on the 6 year life cycles...and cold and heat extremes mine are subjected to.


dragging relays are an issue for sure but they tend to go over 50 miliamps....sometimes close to an amp.

 

[bobbywalter]

both my ranger and the bronco had issues due to the wiper delay critter....both creating mystery hunts to figure it out after fuse pulling...


and i figured it out because the delay quit and i replaced it... so ....there is that.

 

[Shran]

with the batteries remote mounted..
my gm setup does not get along with the agm....the previous g3 seemed a non issue.... frustrating. changing my ground scenario put the numbers good and i never retrofitted the g3 stuff.

though i looked at the silicone dioxide units because i just dont like fluid batteries for situations where the rig may not be level-ish. winching hard with the lead acid at 30 degrees is not a good way to keep them on the 6 year life cycles...and cold and heat extremes mine are subjected to.


dragging relays are an issue for sure but they tend to go over 50 miliamps....sometimes close to an amp.

Winching and off camber are exactly why I went to AGM. I was expecting 5-6 years and have been shocked that it is 12 years old now but it does sit in a heated garage most of the time.

FWIW I put a Diehard AGM in my Explorer and that battery has been a piece of shit. Replaced once under warranty already, it just randomly crashed one time and was at 1 or 2v after sitting for a couple of days. Wouldn't come back to life. The replacement has crashed a couple times but came back.

Optimas used to be great, my wife's '06 Prius still has the original yellow top in it. That battery might die with the car. They are junk now, everyone I know who has bought one lately says they last a couple years at most. For the price they are a rip off.

 

[bobbywalter]

well...you need .03 or lower to be ideal.... .15 seems like 5-6 days makes sense. this cycle is hell on the plates getting loaded up....

 

[RonD]

I would check your Fluke meter
9.anything volts would barely run a power window motor let alone turn a cold engine over, or warm engine, lol

15mA is 0.015amps
Spec for a Ranger is 30-40mA for computer and radio memory, add keyless entry and is 60-70mA

So the 15mA doesn't make sense unless its a 1983-1985 carb Ranger, lol

150mA(0.15amps) could drain a failing battery in a week
Brand car new battery with 750CCR has about 70AH(amp hours)

When battery's at rest voltage is under 12.3v its below 50% capacity so 35amp hours
And if it gets much lower then not enough amps to start engine
So the 150mA drain could suck it down low enough in a few days

 

[RobbieD]

if that were the case... I would constantly jumping the battery.... no?

Not really. More like trying to deposit enough money in the bank in enough time to cover the checks you write, versus keeping a surplus balance as a cushion.

Starting and letting it idle a little and short drives don't fully charge a battery. The most common "advice from experts" I see on the net is a 30 minute drive a week to keep a battery fully charged.

I can see that, if you go for a longish stretch of time without driving it long enough to fully charge it, then you can reach a point where it just don't have enough left to start.

I don't drive near as much since retiring, and I have to use a trickle charger on my trucks more often now to keep the batteries up.

 

[86_FX4]

If you're consistently not driving and the truck sits for a week on, week off, and all your drives are short, you're probably abusing the battery.

I have a feeling what's happening is you're stressing the battery, and while it has juice to start, it probably uses up most of it's reserve there, and if you're just running a short errand to grab a brew or dinner its never getting a proper full charge and left even weaker afterwards.

I'd probably do what Shran and RobbieD mentioned and start using a maintainer. They are cheap and they do work. You could also buy or make a small fused jumper with covered connector that allows you to charge from bumper area rather than opening hood constantly.

If that doesnt fix it, THEN we can all go down the rabbit hole together!

 

[Uncle Gump]

I would check your Fluke meter
9.anything volts would barely run a power window motor let alone turn a cold engine over, or warm engine, lol

15mA is 0.015amps
Spec for a Ranger is 30-40mA for computer and radio memory, add keyless entry and is 60-70mA

So the 15mA doesn't make sense unless its a 1983-1985 carb Ranger, lol

150mA(0.15amps) could drain a failing battery in a week
Brand car new battery with 750CCR has about 70AH(amp hours)

When battery's at rest voltage is under 12.3v its below 50% capacity so 35amp hours
And if it gets much lower then not enough amps to start engine
So the 150mA drain could suck it down low enough in a few days

As soon as I read you say... check your Fluke. I realized I goofed. I didn't have the leads switched to measure amps... well mA. So whatever I said about draw... is trash. I'm going to have to retest tomorrow. Stupid mistake... can't believe it even gave me a reading.

I'm gonna go stand in the corner now and think about what I've done.

 

[RobbieD]

I'm gonna go stand in the corner now and think about what I've done.

Thank you for saving us the trouble.

For your thoughtfulness you may take 10 minutes off of your time-out.

Pretty bad when when your Fluke has a fluke.

 

[Uncle Gump]

I'm just gonna sell all my tools and trucks...

 

[pjtoledo]

I'll trade you a good pizza recipe for them.

 

[19Walt93]

Sorry that was a typo. UPrated!

OK,what's uprated?