battery won't hold a charge !

**ACCORD EX** · 08-16-2002, 12:25 PM

today ( after the car 's been sitting for 2 days )

i started teh car and there was nothing ! no lights , car won't crank !

anyway i started it with another batter and it came on and ran it for 30 min and then shut it off and turned it on again nothing !

my question is can a defective battery discharge in less than 2 days !

do i need a new battery ?
BTW the voltage of the battery when car running is 14 V and when off only 8 V !

MIKE

**shepherd79** · 08-16-2002, 03:15 PM

how old is the battery?
i would change it. get the bigges on you can fit.
i think stock one is 500 CCA and i got 750 CCA(cold cranking amps).

**dj99** · 08-16-2002, 05:30 PM

Definitely get a new battery. Your charging system is OK, putting out 14V running.

**POS carb** · 08-16-2002, 09:57 PM

1 or 2 cells of your battery are shot. get a new one

**ACCORD EX** · 08-17-2002, 12:05 PM

thanx for the replies !! now i need the money !

anyway what is the stock ampere of the Bat 55 amp , 65 , 75 ! the one currently in is 55 amp !!
is it bad to get a bigger amp ! ?

thanx again guys !

MIKE

**ACCORD EX** · 08-17-2002, 01:52 PM

i looked in my honda OWNER'S Manual and it says
Battery : 12 V 40 Ah !
what is the ups and lows of having a bigger Amp Battery !

MIKE

**dj99** · 08-17-2002, 03:58 PM

I bought the el-cheapo battery at Wal-Mart for about $30. Starts the car just fine, and charges up too. If your car has to crank to start, it needs a tune-up.

**topgungj** · 08-17-2002, 04:19 PM

I have a Walmart EverStart 1000 in my 3gee cost me 49 bucks
it's a 1200 AMP battery ( needed it for all the crap I have on my ride, audio equip, vid, playstation, neon, etc etc etc) If you don't want to go big I would suggest a relocate of your batterys to your trunk and run 2 600 or 700's ( you might need to upgrade your alternator!! )

TopGun..

**DBMaster** · 08-17-2002, 04:29 PM

Ah (amp hours) are not the same thing as CCA (cold cranking amps). Ah is a measure of how much sustained demand the battery can withstand while CCA is instantaneous power starting. Testing of car batteries that Consumer Reports does periodically has shown that a lot of batteries do not produce their advertised CCA. I personally have head horrible luck with Wal Mart batteries. After replacing tow of them in each of my cars (a total of four) after 16-18 months I went to a different manufacturer's battery and have had much better luck.

Heat kills a battery much faster than cold. Cold can slow down the chemical reactions producing the electricty, but heat breaks down the internal corrosion and speeds the demise of the battery. In this state you are lucky to get three years out of a good battery. It doesn't get cold enough to need to buy batteries with a lot of extra CCA. If you have added a lot of extra electrical accessories (i.e. big amplifier or a lot of extra lighting) to your car you might have a need for a battery with a higher Ah rating and a higher amp alternator. (Factory LXi alternator is 65 amps) If not, you're realy wasting your money to buy extra CCA.

I keep saying I want my next battery to be an Optima. It uses a different technology with a gel type electrolyte and "rolled" plates. It is supposed to be a lot more resistant to high heat. At $120 it would have to last me at least six years to be worth it, though.

**dj99** · 08-17-2002, 05:24 PM

High heat under the hood killing the battery prematurely is a "known defect" on our 3G's. Honda actually sells a battery cover to shield the battery from heat. For about $10 from Hparts.com, it is probably cheap insurance.

In the meantime, I'd rather run a cheap battery and take my chances. I got a "good" 7 year battery that lasted 3 years, and used the warranty cash to buy the Wal-mart el-cheapo outright.

**smufguy** · 08-17-2002, 06:48 PM

i prefer diehard battery from sears and testing it when being installed is great. I had it installed and tested for 99 bucks. the battery (diehard gold) was 89 bucks and testing was 10 bucks. it tests ur altenator, starter coil, and everything that compiles ur electrical system. its an awsome thing to do to make sure everything is where they are supposed to be.

**POS carb** · 08-17-2002, 11:46 PM

Mike, 55,65, and 75 sound more like alternator outputs than battery outputs to me! USDM alternators put out about 65 amps stock and for some reason it seems to keep my system fed.
If you have a big audio system one with a high level of cca will keep it juiced, if you were to run your accesories for a long time with the motor off (hydros, audio shows, etc.) you would get a deep cycle battery, some people use marine batteries for stuff like that.

**ACCORD EX** · 08-18-2002, 04:25 AM

ok thanx for all the replies guys !
BTW in egypt they sell the batteries by amps ( like the alternator )

so i 'll get a 55 amp battery it worked fine for me and i really don't hve much accessories in my car !

does any one know the conversion from CCA > regular amps !
thanx again !

MIKE

**DBMaster** · 08-18-2002, 12:13 PM

POS, I think you should read my post again. I DID say the alternator output was 65 amps. I guess what I was trying to get at is if you have enough electrical accesories added to draw more total amps than 65 your alternator will not be able to keep the battery charged. I think you would have to have some massive amplification for your sound system, extra lights out the wazoo, etc. to do it, but you can get 100 amp alternators, if needed.

The amp-hour thing on the battery is legitimate. I recently had to replace all 80 batteries in our company's UPS. (Uninterruptable Power Supply) It backs up all of our servers and phone switches. The batteries in it are basically deep cycle lead acid batteries, not too different from what you would buy for a boat. There are two cabinets with 40 batteries each connected in series to provide 480 volts (that is what comes in to our building from the power company). The transformers step it down to 120 volts in some cases, 240 in others.

Anyway, the point of this is that the batteries were all 12 volt, 40 amp hour. That means that a brand new battery should be able to supply a 40 amp load for one hour. So if you headlights draw 20 amps, stereo 4, and so on you can add all of that up and be able to figure out how long your battery could power shit before using up its charge. A car battery is designed to be constantly charged by the alternator while a "deep cycle" battery is designed to be charged fully and then discharged "deeply" before being charged again (as on a lot of boats)

Cold cranking amps are the total load that the battery can supply instantanteously, just for cranking the motor. Obviously is takes more amps to crank the car when it is cold v. hot. My ancient Pontiac with a 400 V8 (6.6 liter) used to draw about 120 amps to start it dead cold. My dad once went cheap and bought a 300 CCA battery for it and it worked fine for three years. If I am calculating correctly our starters will draw a maximum of about 116 amps (motor is rated 12v-1.4KW).

Like I said, unless you live in Northern Canada, Alaska, or one of those other iceboxes a CCA rating like what came with your car is more than adequate because CCA's do not necessarily equate to Ah's. So buying a 750+ CCA battery probably won't make much difference in how long you can run the stereo or keep the lights on with the engine turned off.

Does this make sense, or I am just rambling?

**DBMaster** · 08-18-2002, 12:19 PM

Oh, BTW, I recently read that by 2004 auto manufacturers are going to be going to 42 volt electrical systems.

Amp hours are a measure of what Consumer Reports called "reserve capacity" in their last battery test. (October 2001 issue) The Optima battery that I thought was so cool didn;t perform all that well, but they had no test to determine if they thought it would last longer in the heat than a regular battery.

Sorry to go on like this, but this is a topic I find really interesting.

**Microstreak** · 08-18-2002, 01:43 PM

funny, that used to happen to me all the friggen time. then it was just a 2-3 day thing. as long as i start the car every 2-3 days it'll be fine. btw, the best thing to do is get another battery. Say from costco, sams club, that has a no hassle replacement warranty. ive gone thru 4 batts w/ my accord. but for some reason its stopped draining the batt. (i still start the car every few days if i don't drive it, just in case) dunno why, this car jus keeps on suprising me....