Battery or alternator??

I've had alot of promblems with Autozone batteries. Not sure what kind your using but dish the money out for a Interstate or name brand one. If you plan on buying a new one.
 
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there arent that many battery manufacturers, just different labels on them (kinda like Walbro fuel pumps). a main concern is how long has it been sitting on the shelf at the parts store. i always need to top the water off, even when brand new. same for charging them overnight. i also have them test the battery before i buy it. i have gotten bad ones right off the bat.

a car sitting for the winter is one of the hardest things on a battery. at a minimum, the battery needs to be disconnected and put somewhere reasonably warm. a trickle charger is a great idea.
motorcycle batteries are very finicky. i know many a rider, most of whom have 4 or 5 bikes, that keep all the batts in the house. all of them are on trickle chargers.
but like i said, even disconnecting it and moving it some where warmer than the freezing garage can really help a lot. charge it once a month too.
just my thoughts and experiences. good luck.
 
Most shops can load test the battery - the results will tell you if it's shot or recoverable. As for the alternator - it may be charging fine, but if your accessories are too much for it, you'll continue to draw down batteries even if you don't harm the alternator. Seems to me if you're pulling lots of amps with accessories, and you don't upgrade the alternator, you're just gonna ruin another new battery. Tryin' to help....if I understand the issues correctly. Good luck with it...
 
cool deal, yeah i hear ya mike...i am building a new motor and wanted to wait till them for the new alternator and not have to put in it now during the winter and dirty leaky motor. (even tho its not gonna be drive alot) since the alternators good ill gonna use it out till the new motor, which is only a few months away. ( i hope lol)
O, and he battery was brand new off the exide truck.. its a non maintenance Exide 72 (months) battery is great, with my system ( 2amps and 2 subs) and the car off it played at a decent volume for about 30 mins b4 it crapped out.

thanks for the help everyone. :nice:
 
is it ok to leae a battery on a charger from like 4 pm till about 10 am??? the battery had UNDER 1 volt...at 11 PM the car still didnt want to turn over so im gonna leave it on overnight. so this question was probably useless lol. lets hope for the best lol
 
Black331Stang said:
is it ok to leae a battery on a charger from like 4 pm till about 10 am??? the battery had UNDER 1 volt...at 11 PM the car still didnt want to turn over so im gonna leave it on overnight. so this question was probably useless lol. lets hope for the best lol
you should be able to safely leave it charging overnight, unless you have some wall sized charger. something like a ten amp setting should be fine. most chargers have a "charge complete" circuit. how do you know it had under one volt? are you interpolating the stock voltmeter? just curious.