Car Battery Lifespan

leeside11

My battery died this morning. 04 Fiesta in from since I bought the car new.
Got jumpstarted, got home but now died again. Will have to replace it.
Is there a time span on batteries. Just wondering..

Avns1s

In my experience, anything over two years can be the life of the battery. You did well to get 11 years out of it.

shietpilot

Generally five years is considered good going. You got good time out of yours :P

biko

You got about twice the lifetime out of the current battery. Might as well change it now.

leeside11

Was thinking I got a lot of years out of it alright.
Will be replacing it today.

ianobrien

Geez I must be doing something right or fierce lucky in that most batteries for me last about 8 years plus. The Escort battery is at least 10 years old (I don't have the service history to hand to check, but maybe 13/15 years?) but that battery is in constant use, except for the year it spent on the floor when I had the engine out of the car. It drives the Carcoon and the trickle charger tops it up. The Almera battery was 9 or 10 year old when I had to change it but I did wrap it in blankets on freezing nights for its last year (cold was reducing the power to crank).


Yes you did read that right, a blanket. When I would park it for the night (a night I knew would be cold) I wrapped it in a blanket. I just had to remember to remove the blanket in the morning. I got another 9 months out of the battery by doing that.

JohnBoy26

A battery could go faulty after a month or two or it could last 10-12 years. There is no lifespan as such. It all depends on the quality of the battery and the conditions it was subjected to. A reasonable time for a battery to last in your average car would be about 4-5 years imo.

Field east

The following may not be the case here but it might be useful to those who do a low mileage.
If one makes , say, three short journeys a week (eg sunday religious service, groceries, family visit) - at a mileage of up to 10 miles per trip- do not be surprised to find your two year old battery refusing to start your car on a nice sunny morning.
The reason is that you need to drive approx 30 miles to generate the energy which you used up to start the car each time .A higher mileage might be needed if you have lights, car and seat heater and other gadgets drawing power turned on.
So , the bottom line is that the more short journeys you do and stopping/starting each time and doing on long journeys the quicker your battery will go flat.
I do not know if the above battery can be restored - can be charged up and will hold the charge subject to it being differently managed Eg a few long journeys mixed with the necessary short journeys.
Any comment from those in the know would be very welcome

bazz26

You did very well OP getting that long out it. 5 years on average would be the typical life span but like a light bulb anything goes really.

SpannerMonkey

depends on the car really if its a modern high power car with all the toys it will use the battery faster than an older 1 litre with base spec . on average id say 5 years
also depends on if you do a long drive to work each day or just short runs . batteries hate constant short runs it kills them

JohnBoy26

Field east wrote: »

The following may not be the case here but it might be useful to those who do a low mileage.
If one makes , say, three short journeys a week (eg sunday religious service, groceries, family visit) - at a mileage of up to 10 miles per trip- do not be surprised to find your two year old battery refusing to start your car on a nice sunny morning.
The reason is that you need to drive approx 30 miles to generate the energy which you used up to start the car each time .A higher mileage might be needed if you have lights, car and seat heater and other gadgets drawing power turned on.
So , the bottom line is that the more short journeys you do and stopping/starting each time and doing on long journeys the quicker your battery will go flat.
I do not know if the above battery can be restored - can be charged up and will hold the charge subject to it being differently managed Eg a few long journeys mixed with the necessary short journeys.
Any comment from those in the know would be very welcome

10 miles is plenty to replace the lost charge from starting a car. You don't need to do 30.

JohnBoy26

SpannerMonkey wrote: »

depends on the car really if its a modern high power car with all the toys it will use the battery faster than an older 1 litre with base spec . on average id say 5 years
also depends on if you do a long drive to work each day or just short runs . batteries hate constant short runs it kills them

A larger car will have a larger battery though.

SpannerMonkey

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

10 miles is plenty to replace the lost charge from starting a car. You don't need to do 30.

absolutely disagree . it will not fully recharge what you have used to start the car in 10 miles . it would take a long time before you would notice it, years but it would still be slowly draining the battery bit by bit if you never ever did any more than that .

and yes it will have a larger battery but ive been around cars long enough to know its not as simple as t hat

JohnBoy26

SpannerMonkey wrote: »

absolutely disagree . it will not fully recharge what you have used to start the car in 10 miles . it would take a long time before you would notice it, years but it would still be slowly draining the battery bit by bit if you never ever did any more than that .

I know someone who does even less than this, a 7 mile commute, coincidentally in a fiesta and it's still on it's 13 year old original battery. As I said 10 will be more than enough.

SpannerMonkey

believe what you want mate . :rolleyes:

Boskowski

afaik most decent batteries now have a 5 year guarantee. The 1st battery in my '98 5 series lasted 16 years.

On the above discussion, seriously monkey think about it. How would any of those hybrids survive at all the way they turn off the engine at any stop if it took 10 miles to replenish the battery from one start. You need to do your maths man before you put yourself out like that.

Edit: Of course you can't state a hard rule here in any case. First of all its more of a function over time than distance. Then it depends how much energy was used to start the car in the first place, cold engine, warm engine, big engine, small engine etc. Then it depends on the alternator output which depends on the alternator, its health, the revs. Then it depends on how healthy the battery is. Then it depends on temperature. Loads of things. But if it took 10 miles to recharge a battery form one start most town cars would be dead within a few days/weeks. My gf's first car never did 10 miles in one go once and it lasted its entire life on the same battery.

iano.p

Only got a new battery in the passat a month ago it was in from new so 9 years. The new battery has a 4 year warranty on it.

gctest50

Boskowski wrote: »

............
On the above discussion, seriously monkey think about it. How would any of those hybrids survive at all the way they turn off the engine at any stop if it took 10 miles to replenish the battery from one start. You need to do your maths man before you put yourself out like that.
...........

The other start-stop stuff is getting clever

While conventional idling stop systems rely on a starter motor to restart the engine, Mazda's i-stop restarts the engine through combustion; fuel is directly injected into a cylinder while the engine is stopped and ignited to generate downward piston force. The result is a quick and quiet engine re-start compared to other systems and a significant saving in fuel.



http://www2.mazda.com/en/technology/env/i-stop/

Del2005

Boskowski wrote: »

afaik most decent batteries now have a 5 year guarantee. The 1st battery in my '98 5 series lasted 16 years.

On the above discussion, seriously monkey think about it. How would any of those hybrids survive at all the way they turn off the engine at any stop if it took 10 miles to replenish the battery from one start. You need to do your maths man before you put yourself out like that.

Edit: Of course you can't state a hard rule here in any case. First of all its more of a function over time than distance. Then it depends how much energy was used to start the car in the first place, cold engine, warm engine, big engine, small engine etc. Then it depends on the alternator output which depends on the alternator, its health, the revs. Then it depends on how healthy the battery is. Then it depends on temperature. Loads of things. But if it took 10 miles to recharge a battery form one start most town cars would be dead within a few days/weeks. My gf's first car never did 10 miles in one go once and it lasted its entire life on the same battery.

I've a hybrid and it doesn't start the car like any of my previous normal cars, I never hear the starter motor trying to crank it over. Don't the stop start cars use capacitors to store the charge?

On the 10 miles. It's better to think in minutes then miles and most batteries should recover from starting in around 10 minutes for petrol and 15 for diesel. But since every car and driver is different there is no definitive answer. We have batteries in tractors that are at least 20 years old and still going strong even though they get little use.