Ever had a battery just flat die on you ?

[Woodeye]

I’ve had them just die, right now a cheap atv battery.

 

[wheelbuilder]

One in my wife's minivan went that way. Dead short. Had worked fine to get her out to the store.

 

[tallyho8]

I've had a couple do that. The pop is when the link in the battery from one cell to the next melts, same as a fuse blowing. Most times enough current will jump through the acid to show volts on a meter but not enough amps to light a taillight. In the old days when the top of batteries was just covered with something like tar they would rebuild these batteries by putting a new link between the cells to replace the broken link. I actually did this once as an emergency repair by putting drill screws in the broken links and rigging an old battery cable between the cells to link them back together.

 

[TnAndy]

I've had a couple do that. The pop is when the link in the battery from one cell to the next melts, same as a fuse blowing. Most times enough current will jump through the acid to show volts on a meter but not enough amps to light a taillight. In the old days when the top of batteries was just covered with something like tar they would rebuild these batteries by putting a new link between the cells to replace the broken link. I actually did this once as an emergency repair by putting drill screws in the broken links and rigging an old battery cable between the cells to link them back together.

Yep....that's what it sounded like....a fuse blowing...slight "pop". And the little light in the test probe would shine bright with zero load between hot terminal on the switch and ground until I turned the key on, adding the load of whatever comes on with the key in the on position...the test light would barely light then.

 

[bunyip]

Now I have none in reserve, but I'll cure that Monday with a trip to town.

If it starts

 

[TnAndy]

If it starts

True ! :laughing:

But have car/truck, so surely one of them will....surely.......

These two I'd bought were Optima yellow top D75/25. They have both top and side terminals, so it will fit anything I have.

 

[Complete Turf Care]

I've had batteries fail on me like yours did a couple of times. Once was in my diesel Ram 2500 at the drive through window at the bank. I shut it off to do my transaction and it would not start again. We ended up pushing it out of the lane, and there was an auto parts store next door. I changed both batteries in the bank parking lot.

Another time was on an older pickup. I parked at a customer's business to do some work and about an hour later it would not turn over. It never showed any indication of being weak before that.

So....it does happen.....

 

[Jstpssng]

I helped an old guy roll start his pickup at the CU one day. It was a bit of a challenge getting it to a hill where it would roll, but I knew that if we started there would soon be a few others to join in. Sure enough, they did and we got him back on the road again. :thumbsup:

 

[Beeenvenue]

No, but had one on a car where the internal negative post connection broke. Lights, ignition, everything failed at full speed on an 8-lane highway after dark at 6pm. Somehow God guided me to a safe stop on an off-ramp. Everything started up fine and ran fine for another couple of weeks, did it again. No way to diagnose because vibration caused it to make and break connection at random. Finally found an old guy (at Walmart!) who had seen it before and pushed on the terminal to cause it to happen.

 

[rangerfredbob]

Haven't had that extreme happen, but I've had a few battery failures. Two failures were similar and this year... two batteries would run fine (different vehicles, about a month apart), sometimes start the engine and others not especially if sitting for a day or two, put out 12V with a volt meter but wouldn't run a starter, put a smart charger on and they thought the battery was good... put a load tester and they showed bad after a couple 2 second cycles of the switch.

The most annoying one was on my F350 diesel, had two batteries that bled down after a couple weeks so figured they were bad, replaced them with Optima red tops, two brand new batteries. About a year later it started doing the same thing so I started by disconnecting one battery and seeing what it would do, one had more voltage than the other and the bad battery would suck both of them down to 7V within 4 days... replaced the bad battery and has been good for a year now...