Apparently if you relocate it outside the engine bay in a cooler location its very achievable. I know climate takes a big toll on life, so this makes sense to me. Euros do it but i believe its more for balancing weight.
45k Service & Battery
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Apparently if you relocate it outside the engine bay in a cooler location its very achievable. I know climate takes a big toll on life, so this makes sense to me. Euros do it but i believe its more for balancing weight.
BMW does it for weight. I had one of their batteries in a Z4 and it lasted a total of 2 years before I had to fight with them to replace it under their "bumper to bumper" warranty ("only pay for gas a tires" -salesman at same purchasing dealership). Thankfully, we got rid of it right before the 4yr/50k mark before maintenance/warranty work would be out of pocket.
I am torn between seeing how long I can push the OEM panny vs just empircally changing my battery at 4-5 years given past battery longevity. I definitely travel with a jump pack but have not had to use it on my rig yet.
Ive seen some real interesting battery restoration methods. Boiling the cells with overcharge, then replacing water. I had an eom lexus battery in the garage I wanted to play with but it was disposed before my move. Still died unexpectedly on me though. When they go they dont tend to warn you.
There is merit to replacing batteries proactively. Commonly, a battery is considered worn if it can't hold reserves to 80% of new. We all probably use them beyond that. Problem is as the battery gets further worn, load handling also gets impacted sagging with lower and lower voltages. That's a potential issue for the electrical system as for many inductive loads like a motor for example, if it can't get proper voltage, it will draw more corresponding current to make the power it needs to do something.
Many electrical elements are often primarily rated for current as that's what builds heat. So things like the starter relay, transfer case actuator, fuel pump and controller, tailgate lift actuator... It's wholly possible that these failure points at higher mileage are exacerbated by worn batteries.
Talking to a buddy who was a previous Ford electronics integration engineer, they test for similar issues to make sure electronics have sufficient margin to handle off-nominal conditions. He shared a story where reliability issues could stem from saving 10 cents on a part that didn't have enough margin.
On our Kohler whole house generator the #1 cause for malfunctions in the auto transfer switch & engine faults are having failing 12v batteries - when it really needs to run the last thing you want is trying to find a replacement battery (in the dark probably ha ha)
Battery is on a tender 24/7, but when they decide to go.....well anyway better safe than sorry. Every 3 years is my routine. We lose power a lot on WA Olympic Peninsula.
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on a standby genny, this is the way.
I've seen some weird dash indicators in other cars when the battery was going out and no warning for "low battery." All remedied by changing to a new battery. I am not shocked at all by the Ford engineer's story. I looks like the accountants are starting to run all of the multinational OEM's now.
Can I reliably test battery reserves with a standard multimeter at home? Or just watch for sluggish starting/electrical warning gremlins of unknown origin?