Revitalizing a battery...

[Zvoiture]

Is there a way to 'revitalize' a battery? Two batteries came in with these last two Z's I bought. Both had the dots punched out showing a sold date of early 2002. Both cars have been parked for 6 months. Both are high-quality brands (wet cell).

When you plug them into the charger, the needle just goes instantly to 0 and just stays there, which usually indicates a shot battery. Is there a way to bring these back to life somehow? Both are very clean and full of fluid and don't have any swollen sides or anything (and the weather here never gets near freezing either).

Any hope?

steve77

[Brett240]

empty out the battery acid, replace it with distilled water and put it on trickle charge for a couple of days, if they dont come up to a healthy voltage they are shot. my 2 cents though someone else may know better.

[Alan Pugh]

Steve,

Don't drain the battery acid out and replace with distilled water, all this will do is render the battery useless. No acid no charge.

It sounds to me like one or more of the cells in the battery have shorted out. Sediment sinks to the bottom and rises to a level where it joins the plates togther and renders the cell inactive, or it gets stuck between two plates of a cell and does the same thing. When you hook up the charger it goes straight to zero because the short circuit in the battery is telling the charger it is fully charged.

Just a bit of information for everyone, the average life of a wet cell lead acid battery is 39 months, and extremes of weather either hot or cold are a batteries worst enemy. Adding anything other than pure distilled water to top up a battery will shorten its life quite dramatically. My Dad worked for Dunlop batteries for 25 years, so a little bit has rubbed off on me.

Alan.

[drunkenmaster]

I wouldnt waste your time, decent batteries dont cost that much new anyhow. I bought a replacement a couple weeks ago for $65AUD

I had an odyssey gel cell in my other car for 2 years when it finally died last month, I was never really impressed by it and when it finally died and i returned it, I found out why.

For 2 years I had been using a faulty battery that was manufactured with 5 cells instead of 6......so it was doing pretty well considering.

Gell cells are suppose to last around 10 years and can withstand being run flat many times.

[Daniel]

Some info. I read stated that the plates inside the battery will scar (their term not mine)when it runs down.It will never charge back to full again.Each run down = more scars.A marine battery also known as a "deep cell" is made to run down without damage and will fully charge back up.As best as I can recall the heat is what deep cells die from and is the reason you don't have one in your car.