So i get back to my car from class this morning, try to start her up and all I hear is a bunch of clicking. I look back at my cap, and its only reading 10 watts. So i was like what? I didnt leave my lights on, dome, radar detector or anything....so i got a jump, took it home, ran it for a good half an hour to get the battery back up. Left a little later and she started fine, turned her on and off to get gas and she was fine. Then i stoped at the drug store for a few min, came back out and she wouldnt start. Same thing happend, my cap was reading 10 watts. So i got another jump and took it to the dealer and they put in a new battery, now shes fine. I was just confused because i have a 03 cavalier, the battery is/was fairly new. Im running subs, undercarlighting, interior neon and so forth, would that hurt the life of the battery or what? I have ran the battery down all the way only a couple of times........what do you guys think??
any time you run a battery flat , it never recovers fully and the plates get damaged. a couple of times is all it takes to ruin an otherwise good battery. If you want to deeep discharge it get a deep cycle battery which are designed to run down
yeah basically drain a stock battery then recharge it. it is now holding half the power it had. do that again and its now halfed again (1/4 what it had new) and so on and so on till theres nothing left. the way it died i'd make sure that the dealer checked your alt to make sure it was working fine. or in a few days you will be out jumping the new battery.
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Get an OPTIMA YELLOW top. They're meant for car sterio's and cold weather starting, ect. If you have a membership to costco, you can get one there for $170 and it will most likely last 6 years or longer. If you stay with that ACDelco batt, you might want to consider getting a trickle charger; basically you attach it to your battery and mount it somewhere. then when your at home for the night you plug in the charger with an extention cord. Trickle chargers cost about $10-$20 this will prevent your battery from draining to much. Also, if you havent already. Do the BIG 3. I can't stress this enough. If you have a car sterio and everything else u say you do. Then you need this mod. It's relatively cheap and a complete retard could do it in less than an hour.
ive had my yellow top about 6 months, and its already completely dead, and dosent seem to want to recharge at all. i didnt think i was running that much power from it, but $175 battery that only lasted me 6 months is insane. just hope i can find the receipt to exchange it with the warranty.