Reply to I work on cars. AMA

Forum Index » Cars and Transportation

Reply to "I work on cars. AMA "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have a sports car that I drive rarely (mainly because it's a 2-seater and we have 2 small kids), like less than 1,000 miles/year and it may go weeks between uses. I keep it on a battery tender. How will I know the battery is finally ready to give up? I think the battery is 10 years old, but it's _always_ been on a tender unless I'm driving it.[/quote]

At ten years old, you’re on borrowed time already, even though it doesn’t get much use. At the very least, check the electrolyte levels (assuming it’s not a sealed battery like an AGM style) and make sure the tops of the plates are covered. Being on a tender all the time can slowly cook off the electrolyte, even though it never gets anywhere near the boiling point. Something to do with ionic bonding or such. I don’t really understand the chemistry completely, but that what happens. So check the level, add distilled water if needed. You won’t be able to tell if the plates are sulfated or not, but at ten years, I’d suspect they’re at least partially sulfated.

And carry some cables, or one of those neat new little charge booster packs that are all over Amazon for like $80 now. Because it’ll fail at some point, and then you’ll know it’s time. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics