Thread: Battery issues

Take it back I have had numerous brand new batteries that did not last, I had to replace a Deka battery 3 times in 18 months in my Jeep before I got a good one. Now this one is going on 3 years and doing fine. Same with my truck takes two batteries and both went bad in the first 12 months both replaced under warranty.

Are they wired parallel 12 volts or in series 24 volts?

While the batteries are under warranty, I would take them back without delay. Insist on a load test, and a replacement if warranted.
With the price of those batteries, I would not dilly dally around.
A quick meter test of your charger performance while charging will tell you what you need to know regarding the charger.
My two trolling batteries are 7 and 5 years old, Walmart Everstart. I flip flop a smart charging battery maintainer between the two batteries that puts out 2 amps or less, depending on need. When I need a faster charge, I connect a bigger smart charger to them, but that's not the norm. These batteries overall prefer a lower amp charge most of the time, with only occasional fast charges. This is regarding deep cycle lead acid batteries, Lithium is a whole other game.
I know an electrical engineer that works on yachts and all kinds of high end watercraft that told me if you have a battery charger at home that just looks old, get rid of it, and move up to "Smart Chargers". They are smart programed to deliver the charge rate that is best for that battery, and adapts to battery feedback. The day of the old steady rate chargers are gone, and good riddance. I tapped small digital meters into the charger leads on mine that displays how the charger does all the right things at just the right time at the right rate. Amazing, actually. In time, those numbers will show small changes, nuances if you will, that indicate that a battery is deteriorating, and give you a heads up that it's nearing replacement time. This is quite helpful for monitoring batteries that are not easily accessible, or just doggone heavy and a pain to be taking in and out!

Had a friend that worked at the local interstate supplier. I stopped by to see her one day and couldn't believe the number of bad new batteries I seen stacked up. But when you get a good one it will last a long time.

About ten years ago, a man that owned a garage that also sold batteries told me that it was an industry standard that 10% of new batteries sold fail while under warranty.
That is probably still the rule today.
Warranty replacement is big with me. About 15 years ago, while about 600 miles from home, my truck battery (Less than a year old) was dead - not even a click when I tried to start it. Fortunately, it was a Walmart battery, and a Walmart was maybe 10 minutes away. Free replace, no questions asked. If I would have had a local small store battery, It would have been "We are so sorry..."...
BTW - all batteries are getting expensive! Couple of months ago, a new battery for my truck was almost $200.00 !!! GEEZ!!!

Originally Posted by cwright

could it be something with the charger? Both went dead last year within a month of each other and then all these issues.

Definitely could be charger. Need to discharge batteries and note their voltages. Then charge and monitor voltages during charge and when cycle completes. I'm thinking you have an auto shut off charger? Even at a 10% defective rate the chance of you getting 2 defective batteries, at different times is not very likely.

Series 24 volt

Originally Posted by MDCrappie

Definitely could be charger. Need to discharge batteries and note their voltages. Then charge and monitor voltages during charge and when cycle completes. I'm thinking you have an auto shut off charger? Even at a 10% defective rate the chance of you getting 2 defective batteries, at different times is not very likely.

What does happen is one battery starts to go bad and the good battery carries the load until something really shows up. You will usually never catch one battery going bad in a two battery system until too late. Exactly what happened to my truck with a two battery system