bad battery or slow electrical draw?

buy a red top battery an be done deff the battery

If a battery is drained completely too many times, it's toast and will no longer hold a charge.

lx5.0maine said:

buy a red top battery an be done deff the battery

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FYI, red top batteries are junk.

OP, a brand new battery that sits for one winter should be alright once it's charged up. Did you try hooking it up to a decent battery charger? After sitting all winter the battery is drained so much that there isn't enough charge there to jump start it appropriately. If you think about electrical current as water flowing, the tank is empty in your battery and the jumper cables can only carry so much water (current). My suggestion is to hook the battery up to a dedicated battery charger for a few hours and then try to start it. Be sure that the battery is disconnected from your car while charging.

FWIW, my car sits all winter, and I always disconnect the battery and leave it hooked up to a charger. GDawg is right that repeated draining will kill batteries, but I don't see letting it sit for one winter as being enough to wreck it.

How old is the battery? If its the original, then its likely all done. Especially after sitting discharged. Just get a new one.

It also sounds like you havent charged it.... Just a short drive wont fully charge your battery. Use a charger.

If you have a current draw or internal short most battery chargers will throw an error code if you leave it trickle charging overnight. You can quickly hook up an ampmeter to check the current draw.

N8Dogg98 said:

FYI, red top batteries are junk.

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They are far from junk but they are a bit over priced.

GDawg said:

They are far from junk but they are a bit over priced.

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I replaced multiple red top batteries. Fortunately all but one were replaced during the 3 year original warranty. The last one I had went bad in less than 1 year and unfortunately it's past the 3 year warranty period. I'm not the only one who has experienced this either. Hell even cheapo wal-mart batteries will typically outlast the red tops.

A $150 battery should never go bad within one year, period. Now the yellow tops are a different story. I know people who have had those for years and no issues whatsoever, but at $300 that's a little much for a damn battery. Are you running a red top GDawg? If so, you should get a battery load test done. I bet it fails, Mine failed just months into owning it. It would still start the car, but wouldn't stand up to a load test. At night the lights would dim at a stoplight and that's how I knew something wasn't right. Then one day it just stopped holding enough charge to start the car.

Since then I've picked up a $60 battery from Fleet Farm and my lights don't dim at night and she fires up right away. I can only speak from my own experience, but I went through 3 red-tops and have a couple of friends who had the same thing happen. I would never recommend one to anyone.

Your alternator is not a battery charger. That is not what it is made to do. Using it as so put a large strain on it, and takes thousands of miles off the lifespan of the unit.

That being said, take the battery out and charge it overnight. If your are not mechanically inclined, drive your car to Advanced Auto and have them perform their free electrical load test on your car.

I've had my red top for six years now and no problems. The one I had before that lasted me around six years and when I took it from the heat of Vegas to the cold of the Rockies, it died. But it's replacement is still going strong.

You're not buying your Red Top Optimas at Walmart are you cause if so, they aren't the same.

Nope I bought mine from Batteries Plus... Honestly the only reason I bought one was because it looked good under the hood. Other than that the red-top battery does nothing more than a standard battery. Yellow tops are a different story. Those batteries are great if you have a thumping stereo and bump the tunes while the car isn't running.

Both Red Top and Yellow Top AND Blue Top are "gel" batteries. You can mount them upside down if you want. You can't do that with a "standard" battery.

The Yellow Top batteries are "deep cycle" batteries intended for use where the battery is going to be drained often. Like in an electric golf cart, or in a car with a massive stereo/video system, or in a truck that has a ton of flood/fog lights. If you use a Red Top the way you can use a Yellow Top, then yes, you will kill it. It's not that kind of battery.

N8Dogg98 said:

FYI, red top batteries are junk.

OP, a brand new battery that sits for one winter should be alright once it's charged up. Did you try hooking it up to a decent battery charger? After sitting all winter the battery is drained so much that there isn't enough charge there to jump start it appropriately. If you think about electrical current as water flowing, the tank is empty in your battery and the jumper cables can only carry so much water (current). My suggestion is to hook the battery up to a dedicated battery charger for a few hours and then try to start it. Be sure that the battery is disconnected from your car while charging.

FWIW, my car sits all winter, and I always disconnect the battery and leave it hooked up to a charger. GDawg is right that repeated draining will kill batteries, but I don't see letting it sit for one winter as being enough to wreck it.

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well fyi.. i love red top optimas, i have one in my old camaro an its lasted good 7 years, wht do u recomend a walmart never start????

GDawg said:

Both Red Top and Yellow Top AND Blue Top are "gel" batteries. You can mount them upside down if you want. You can't do that with a "standard" battery.

The Yellow Top batteries are "deep cycle" batteries intended for use where the battery is going to be drained often. Like in an electric golf cart, or in a car with a massive stereo/video system, or in a truck that has a ton of flood/fog lights. If you use a Red Top the way you can use a Yellow Top, then yes, you will kill it. It's not that kind of battery.

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Never said the yellow and red were comparable. I'm just saying that rather than spend $150 on a red-top that will be useless if the charge is depleated once, I could buy 2 or 3 standard batteries and have 15 - 20 years worth of trouble free starts.

Now if I were dead set on buying an optima battery, the only one I'd ever consider would be the yellow top because in my experience the red-tops are junk and the yellow-tops are designed to take much more abuse.

Again, I'm not the only one who has had problems with the red tops. They offer NOTHING over a standard battery if the battery is mounted in a stock location. In fact, I'm willing to bet the reason most people buy them is just for looks. No different than buying bright red plug wires or shiny fluid/strut covers. I'm not really saying there's anything wrong with that either, but the idea that red-tops are somehow better than standard batteries in a street car is ridiculous.

Let me ask you this, is your battery mounted upside down or sideways?

lx5.0maine said:

well fyi.. i love red top optimas, i have one in my old camaro an its lasted good 7 years, wht do u recomend a walmart never start????

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Good for you. Where did I recommend a wal-mart battery? What I said was:

N8Dogg98 said:

Hell even cheapo wal-mart batteries will typically outlast the red tops.

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I'm not recommending them, just saying that based on how quickly I went through red-top batteries I could have had a cheap wal-mart battery that would have provided trouble free service.

Anyone installing a battery at a strange angle, someone who races for extended periods of time, or subjects a battery to severe vibration, etc... may benefit from having a red-top battery. Other than that, they are not ideal for street use and there is no way to justify the extra cost unless your reason is "I like the way it looks" which is fine if you're honest about it.

The only reason I bought one was because I assumed (incorrectly) that they were better than standard batteries and I also liked the way they look.

FWIW, the battery in my DD is about 10 years old. It's an AC delco battery that has been in a car that sat for extended periods of time (it's a 1995 Chrysler and it only has 80K miles on it and sometimes sat for a month or two w/o being driven). This battery has never needed to be on a charger and has started my DD flawlessly everytime, even in -30* weather. It would be incredibly unlikely for a red-top battery to last 10 years and I bet it wouldn't even last 2 years in my DD.

My 'Stang is 9+ years old now and still on the original battery. Up until this year, it was stored every winter with the battery left in the battery tray. This year I pulled it out and kept it in my garage all winter. About a week before I was to pull the car out of storage I slapped the battery on a trickle charger and it's still going strong.

A lead-acid battery will not die from a single winter of storage.

Batteries can develop faults that are basically internal short circuits. These are the sorts of faults that result in you driving to a store, going in and then coming out a little later only to find the thing doesn't even click -- dead battery. A battery that is about to have a major internal short like this may start with a lesser current draw that will kill it in short order. This type of thing can come about from vibration damage, a problem not uncommon to cars with stiff suspensions (for example...)

Batteries can also "sulphate" over time. This is a build-up of lead sulphate on the plates. This stuff is cancer to a battery. It reduces a battery's capacity dramatically and can hinder charging too.

I don't believe the alternator will be damaged by charging a dead battery. Most alternators are rated at 90-120A (or more) which is far more than a battery will require. The alternator has to run everything from the high-beams and wiper motor and rear-defogger to the ignition system and fuel pump. I don't think feeding a few amps to the battery is going to kill it.

As for the battery: I'd just go to Ford and get a new OE-quality lead-acid unit and be done with it.

Have you checked your alternator, sometimes the diode will go bad and allow currant to flow past,and this will drain you bat, in a couple of days, just replaced mine- 01gt w/35,000mi its worth checking, just unplug the plug on the alt,next time your going to let it sit and see

gwilkrrs said:

ok- hear is the deal.
1.car wouldnt start.
2.bought a wallmart battery-(i know, you get what you pay for)
3.car ran for 2 weeks
4.car wouldnt start- thought ok, alternator is crap and just ran battery into ground....
5. car sat with dead battery all winter
6. installed new alternator
7. jump started car off truck and tookon short drive
8. drove car next day short distance
9. car sat for 3 days then not start
10. jump started car and let idle for 15min.
11. now has been sitting for 3 days and will try to start tonight.

my question is- i know a battery can last a winter without help..... can a dead battery last a winter then be charged back up or is it toast.....

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The alternator is not an ideal way to fully charge a battery. My suggestion is to get an actual battery charger and allow it to do its thing before proceeding. If you still experience problems, take that battery back to Wal-mart and see if they can load test it (they should be able to if they have a repair shop). If the battery is toast you'll at least get a pro-rated replacement from them and if the battery is fine we'll need to look elsewhere for the problem.

My guess is the battery still hasn't been properly and fully charged, and by letting it sit on a dedicated charger your problems will be resolved.