I need to vent a bit today so bear with me ok? Saturday was a great winter day in Mtl, -8C sunny, roads and streets were all DRY and since i haven't driven my 8 since the 1st week of december i decide to go take a ride, 100k or so just for fun. About 10 days before that i had checked the car, it was great, made a quarter turn on the tires but did not start it, no need to everything worked great and lights were working fine. But saturday nothing, remote wasn't working, there wasn't a "nanowatt" of power in my car.I am pretty sure i left nothing on or open... How disappointing can it get?? Got the battery outta there, put it on the charger... i'll bring it back in the car tomorrow. Anything i should have to do before cranking it and listening to it's great music? Should i reset the ECU or something? I have the GS so no DSC or anything. Thanks for listening, i feel better . :-)

 

Ya. Same thing happened to me. Twice. So I got a trickle charger from Canadian Tire.

A word of warning, if your battery dies and you put the charger on, be sure to arm then disarm the alarm before opening the doors (alarm goes off) starting the car (alarm goes off) shutting the hood (alarm goes off). Even the manual is not correct in this case. The manual states that turning on the ignition should disarm the alarm. It doesn't. My neighbours were getting a little annoyed.

 

Thanks, any idea why it happened on your car?

 

I was away on business and when I came back after three weeks, I started only for about 5 minutes on the saturday thten again on the Sunday. The next week (after a cold spell) it wouldn't even turn on all the diag lights when you turn the key. I uset the jumper cables to get it started, ran it 15 min. Then the same thing a few weeks later. So my guess is the cold plus lack of TLC.

 

Same thing happened to me. My car sat for a few weeks and the battery drained enough to just barely crank the car into a flood situation.
A trickle charger has fixed the problem.
DO NOT use a cheap on or off trickle charger. Spend an extra 20 and get a "smart" charger (1- 3 amp) that charges the battery and then drops to a lower voltage and maintains a float charge.
A regular trickle charger does not drop the voltage and could boil your battery dry and kill it.
Brands to look for are Battery Tender, battery Minder, and the ACI supercharger, or Supercharger plus.
I am also going to upgrade to a beefier battery.

 

Getting lazy to undo the battery and do not want to reset the ecu. Can I hook up the charger to the battery positive terminal and negative to the metal bar on the alternator without disonncecting all battery connection?

 

Most of the smart chargers come with clips, and quick connect ring terminals.
I installed the ring terminals permenantly and simply pop the hood and connect/unconnect the coupler. You do not have to unhook the battery to do the install. You dont need to unhook to use the clips either.
As a bonus after charging, it goes into a maintanence float charge which also keeps the battery warm, and thus most of the CCA's that are lost as a battery gets cold.

 

Thanks guys for all the info on the chargers.

 

I have a question.

My 8 in away in my unheated garage for the winter. I've been starting it and letting it run about every two weeks. I'm taking all the proper precautions: letting it warm up for an extra 5 mins after the temp guage reads warm. When I went to start my car last week... nothing. Didn't even crank. Sucks that my battery went dead.

I was thinking of getting a trickle charger... something I can keep plugged in pretty much until spring. But I don't know if this is a great plan because when I read the box it stated something about only keeping batteries warm or something like that. What ampage should I buy? And is it really okay to let it stay plugged in for that long with no damage to my engine or electrical problems.

 

Your car was in a cold garage, and the battery drained down. The fact that it was cold meant that you had even less CCA's available from the battery. At -30 you have about half the power from your battery.There probably was not enough juice left for your car computer to tell the car to start. Cars can do strange things with a weak cold battery. A cold battery also has to warm up before it will take a charge from the alternator. A trickle charger wil recharge the battery and keep it "topped up" if left plugged in.
As a bonus while it is being kept topped up the charger will also be keeping the battery warm, and thus providing you with full CCA's.
A battery blanket will do the same thing.
As for amperage it doesnt matter. Smaller amperage just means it will take longer to charge the battery. If you drive you r car and plug it in for the night it will be topped up within a couple of hours. A very large amperage charger is really for batteries that are completely dead.
Whatever you buy DO NOT get a run of the mill 15-25 dollar trickle charger from Canadian Tire. You must get a smart charger that lowers the voltage after the battery is charged. A plain trickle charger will cook your battery.
I bought an ACI supercharger @ 1 amp. They sell a 3 amp model.
Battery Tender sells a nice .75 amp charger as well as a 1.25 amp model.
1-3 amps will be enough to keep the battery warm and charged.



Check this linky:

http://www.batterytender.com/


And if you want to know more about batteries than should be allowed by law go here:

http://www.uuhome.de/william.darden/

 

Thank you emmensly. I'm going to get a trickle charger asap. And not from Canadian Tire.

 

If you are not driving the car why not just pull the battery and bring it inside and toss a regular charger on it once a month for a couple hours. It will have a longer happier life if you bring it inside. It took me all of 5 minutes to remove mine (10mm box wrench???), it even has very nice carrying straps. The quality battery tender type chargers that cycle on and off (the type you need) can be expensive, like the cost of a replacement battery . . . A car that is driven regularly shouldn't need any sort of charger unless it is constantly very cold and you take many successive short trips. Be careful with the remote, I somehow pushed the trunk button and the light killed my battery one time.

It's also probably better to not run the car unless you are going to drive it for some distance. The transmission and stuff will not get warmed up along with the engine and all that idling just cruds up the engine. I just leave mine parked . . .

Now clarification on some of the above points. A cold battery doesn't need to warm up before it takes a charge, clamp a charger on a dead battery at -30 and see how many amps it draws. If the battery doesn't have shorted plates or some other problem it will draw all the current the charger can put out. Very low current trickle chargers probably won't raise the battery temperature in any sort of measurable way but a charged battery is still better than a dead battery. The cars computer is going to be one of the last things to fail when the battery gets low. It might take an amp of power to run and the starter will draw several hundred. On top of that cars are very noisy electrical environments so there will be significant voltage regulation for the computer. It's all about getting the engine rotating . . .

The Pot8r alarm story above is funny. I did a similar thing, if you hit the unlock button and don't open any doors the car locks on its own after 20 seconds or something and arms the alarm. Silly me, the car was in my garage and locked it self with the windows open so I just reached in and opened the door using the inside handle. The thing starts beeping like crazy so I started the car and to my surprise it kept beeping. I had to get the manual out for a quick read while my neighbors were staring at me with puzzled looks . . .

 

Actually the battery tender type chargers do not cycle on and off. They charge at a higher voltage and once charged they trickle, or float at a lower voltage.
As for cold batteries not needing to warm up, or computers not failing.......have a look here:

http://www.canadiandriver.com/winter/031105.htm

and here:

http://www.canadiandriver.com/winter/030205.htm

As for the trickle charger not keeping the battery warm....well I live in Winnipeg. We just had a cold snap of about -32 - -40 degrees.
I can without a doubt tell you that my cars start much quicker/easier with a trickle charge, or battery blanket for that matter.
Yes a cold battery will take a charge, but not as good as a warm battery. Yes, put a charger on a dead battery at -30 and see how many amps it draws. Also note that it will draw those amps for a longer time then if it was warm.
The web links I provided are under the assumption that alot of people start their cars, warm it for 10 minutes, drive for 5 and then park at the mall. This is not good for a battery.
My ACI charger was 40 dollars, far from the cost of a replacement battery.
I live in Winterpeg, and the car can be parked in the garage anywhere from 1 day to 4 weeks between drives (out only on snow free, cold no slush winter days) and is sometimes driven on short trips.
40 bucks is worth not having the hassle of removing the battery.
The car starts quicker, the battery is always fresh, and from what I have read will take a charge quicker.
Pretty cheap insurance for me.
If I remember correctly, a good smart charger will also condition your battery and prevent a type of reaction within the battery.

If you really want to learn way to much about batteries go here:

http://www.uuhome.de/william.darden/

 

Believe what you want but some of the stuff in those CanadianDriver articles is absolute BS . . . I agree if you are driving now and then or just short trips, definitely use the trickle charger but I have issues with those articles. If you are not driving all winter then pull the battery.

Let me see 12V and 1 Amp of trickle charging equals 12 Watts of power consumption. Let's say for example 50% of the energy goes into storage in the battery and 50% is waste heat. That's 6 watts of heating energy being applied to a large uninsulated battery at -30 to -40 degrees. That's rather insignificant and an order of magnitude less energy than a battery blanket delivers and it has the benefit of adding insulation to cut the heat loss. You would probably heat the battery up as much by blowing on it before starting the car :-) With the trickle charger it's all about keeping the battery fully charged, that's 99% of the solution, 1% is heat. The battery blanket is a completely different story, it will generate enough heat to restore some efficiency to the battery . . .

As for a battery not taking a charge for 30 minutes until it has warmed up, that's just a crock . . . I drive to work for about 25 minutes everyday. That means that my battery would never be charging. Ya right . . . Someone sent your Winterpeg weather here for the past week (feel free to take it back) and by that journalists science my car should have been dead several days ago. It would only take a day or so of running high load accessories combined with very hard starts to completely drain the battery if no charging was going on. Driving that distance with a good battery I have never had starting problems, that's enough time to keep it fully charged even when continuously running all sorts of high load accessories, the alternator is obviously a decent size.

As for the computer not running below 9 volts, well the starter wouldn't be turning a cold engine over at that point either. Most computers run on far less voltage than that anyways, like 5 volts and there will be a ton of voltage regulation and filtering of power feeding the computer or just everyday starting of the car and noise from the ignition would mess it up. The starter takes hundreds of times more power than the computer so if there is not enough power to run the computer you have much bigger problems. The statement made was maybe technically accurate in some instances but is completely irrelevant or complete silliness depending on how you look at things.

The last replacement battery I bought was for my Audi, it cost something like $52 at Costco. That's pretty close to the cost of the charger and it's also the reason I don't mess with battery warmers and trickle chargers. But I also don't need to as the coldest the car will see is maybe -35 real degrees, Winterpeg is another story. As soon as batteries get lazy they get replaced. The place with the funny money charges a bunch more for their batteries and I have had nothing but bad luck with them, several completely failed at the two or three year mark and the pro-rated warranty is a joke. It's only designed to get you back in there to buy the same junk again.

I would take what some of the media "experts" say with a grain of salt, illogical is illogical . . .

 

Argueing on the internet is pointless.
The author is also a mechanic.
I have my beliefs based on information that I deem as credible.
While you seem to ba a well intentioned, and well versed individual, for all intensive purposes you are simply "some guy on the internet".
I choose to follow the info on the links I have provided.

 

FWIW, I'm right with you bean438 .

I got local quotes for the Interstate MTP-35 @ $79.95 ....... if anyone else has quotes I'd like to see them.

 

Everyone talks about starting the car regularly. I had a dead battery as well, but I was an idiot and left the interior light on. Called CAA and started immediately. The driver from CAA told me to disconect the black terminal wire and ensure it does not touch anything else. I have the car in underground parking and is kept at about 10 degrees C. Not sure if I will disconnect or not.

But I do have a question: For those who are not starting the 8 for the season are you doing anything special? I was told to start every 2 weeks or so and allow to warm up the run to 3500 rpms then turn off so not to flood.

Any comments?
Thanks
Doug

 

I recall that Gord had posted if you are gonna start it, then drive it.
To start and stop will cause a condensation problem as well as contaminate your oil.
If its parked for the winter, leave it be. A day before unhibernation, charge the battery up (or take it off your tender) and away you go.

 

Mr. Bean it's time to get a battery blanket, place around head and thaw brain cells . . . I presented a few bits of obvious factual information that you can take from a high school physics book and some simple logic, I didn't ask you to believe any unsubstantiated statements. Based on the information provided any person with the slightest bit of simple reading comprehension, math and analytical skills might conclude that some of the statements made in the article might not be totally believable. You obviously didn't read or comprehend what I posted so you discounted it outright. Yes I am just some other guy on the Internet, so are you, so is the guy the wrote the article and so are tens of millions of other people and the point is? There is a sea of information out there and the answer is that you gather information from multiple sources, analyze it and try to make a determination as to what is credible. There are a lot of experts out there but none of them and change the laws of physics. Your expert seems to have according to his bio about 25 years less experience working with electronics and computer systems than I have. Now I don't design automobile electronics for a living but I have been around the block a few times and I have some clue about what is technically plausible and what is voodoo. If you want to put unbending blind faith in media publications because the source seems credible, be my guest but it would really suck to be you . . .

<start civilized conversation>
Doug, you should disconnect the battery. There is constant drain from the cars computer, stereo, alarm and possibly other controls. It will completely discharge after a number of weeks. Letting a battery discharge completely and stay that way for months is not good for it and you may have trouble getting it to take a charge again. At least yours is warm, total discharging and freezing can be the kiss of death as you can get warping/shorting plates. I took mine inside the house and I top it up about once a month with a regular charger, there is some natural internal leakage and it will go dead over a long time on it's own. Other than that all I do is boost the tire pressure (39-40 PSI), fill the gas tank (no stabilizer), change the oil, thoroughly wax the exterior and crack all the windows and sunroof open a quarter inch for air flow. I don't start the car or anything, I just let it sit . . . This worked fine for a car I previously stored, never had tire flat spotting or trouble starting in spring etc.
</end civilized conversation>

Disclaimer: I am just saying this as "some guy on the Internet". I have no credibility and I could in fact be a complete bozo so please ignore all statements made. Actually feel free to not even read the post, others just pretend to anyways. I only write them to waste my time where as others may actually be trying to help. Thanks so much for the time to rant and I look forward to someday graduating from some guy on the Internet status :-)

 

Wow that was completely uncalled for. You are more then "just a guy on the internet", you are an *******.

I was nice to you, thanked you, said you were well meaning, and well versed, and you tell me to thaw my brain with a battery blanket?
Once again, thanks for your input, but I will do what I want to do with the information I receive.
I think you took the internet guy the wrong way. The point I was trying to make was do I believe writer/mechanic guy or some guy on the internet?
I am not saying you are right or wrong. If a trickle charger did nothing to warm a battery, then Canadian Driver would not say to use one in the Winter driving section.
Well maybe you are not an *******, maybe you read me the wrong way and took my statement as an insult and decided to attack me.
Sorry if you got that impression.
Anyway no more sweating the small stuff.
Have a nice day.

 

Hey bean...my battery died down here in Texas. I was away on biz for about 2 weeks, when I returned my 8 was dead. Like you, my remote wouldn't even work!! I had her towed into my dealer and had the battery replaced under warranty. They said I had a bad cell.

Good luck!!

- Irish

 

Sorry to have insulted you Bean but it seems impossible to convince you of anything including seemingly obvious things.

I will try one last time, even if you don't believe maybe others won't fall into the same trap. Here is
the math and you can draw your own conclusions. These are not the opinions of some guy on the
Internet, it is a calculation of heating value related to trickle charging based on standard formulas you
can look up yourself. Do the math yourself, modify the assumptions, toss your own numbers, look for
errors or whatever. I have no idea why the guy at Canadian Driver said what he did but I choose not to
take it at face value. The statement didn't look credible to me when I saw it and the math proves it.
I will demonstrate why if you read on . . .

Assumptions:

- I have used degrees F instead of C here because most heat loss calculations are still done that way.
- Battery size is approximately 1/2 cubic foot, say 12 X 12 X 6.
- For the purposes of the calculation we will assume that the battery has roughly the same thermal properties of an uninsulated glass container of water the same size.
- Glass has an insulating factor of .55 U (hard to find the U value of plastic, it might be very slightly higher)
- The battery charger will trickle charge at something slightly above 12 volts so we will say 13.
- Tickle assumes a small amount of current so we will choose 1 Amp as a typical number.
- Depending on the state of the battery charge we will assume on average 50% of the supplied energy
is stored and 50% is waste heat.
- 1 cu/ft of water weighs 62.425 lbs
- 3.41 watts per BTU
- Volts X Amps = Watts
- 1 BTU is the amount of energy required to raise the heat of 1 lb of water 1 degree F.
- CCA battery spec temperature is 0 degrees F (-17.8C), that's what we will try to maintain in terms of battery temperature.
- Coldest day temperature -40 degrees F (just picked, matches degrees C)

Thermal output from trickle charging activity:
13 volts X 1 Amp = 13 Watts
13 Watts X 50% = 6.5 Watts (The heat portion)
6.5 Watts X 3.41 = 22.165 BTUs

Battery capacity in rough terms:
1/2 cu ft X 62.425 lbs = 31.225 lbs of liquid

Capacity of charger to raise the heat of battery with NO LOSS (unfortunately there is a lot of loss at -40):
22.165 BTUs / 31.225 lbs = 0.71 Degrees F per hour

Heat loss:
Design Temperature Difference = 40 degrees F (0 F - 40 F)
Battery surface area = 4 sq ft
4 sq ft X .55 U X 40 DTD = 88 BTU/hour loss

22.165 BTU charge heating - 88 BTU loss = -65.84 BTU/hr
-65.84 BTU / 31.225 lbs = -2.11 Degrees F per hour

If we lower our expectations to a 10 degree differential, i.e. -40 F/C degrees outside and a battery that
is -30 F (-34.4C). If the battery started out at -30 F you could actually maintain it at that temperature.

4 sq ft X .55 U X 10 DTD = 22 BTU/hour loss
This loss almost equals our heat generation of 22.165 BTUs.

In conclusion if your battery started out at 0 degrees F and you connected a trickle charger to it at -40
degrees F it would cool at a rate of 2.11 F degrees per hour. The battery will never get all the way
down to -40 but it will stop cooling when it reaches around -30 F (-34.4C). In somewhere much
greater that 14 hours you could in theory raise the battery temperature from -40 to -30 F degrees but
not higher. According to Exide specs the available power from a battery at -32 F is 25% and the power
to crank an engine is up to 350% versus 80 F. You are still in the really hard start zone but
marginally better than you would be at -40.

In my books that doesn't make trickle chargers equate to much value in the warming department.
In theory the author of the article was not technically wrong, heat is generated but the real world
benefits would be VERY insignificant to the point of not being noticeable. Keeping the battery
completely charged to improve longevity in storage and getting your full 25% power output for cold
starts are the only key benefits.

The guy on the Internet who can't be believed at all cost is signing off now. If you want to choose voodoo over science go ahead . . .

 

Has anyone checked the electrolyte (water) level on their batteries? I checked mine last summer and added some distilled water to each cell.

I'm totally surprised that the owner's manual does not make it very clear that the battery electrolyte level should be check at least one a year.

rx8cited

 

Thank you Scoop. Wasn't that easier than calling me an idiot who can't understand simple math?
I now have my doubts based on your theory about using a trickle charger to keep a battery warm.
I will contact the author at Canadian driver with your theory, and suggest that he revise his article.
My trickle charger is used on the RX8 in a double attached garage simply to keep the battery topped up for the 1-20 days or so it stays parked at a time. I thought the "warmimg" effect was a side bonus.
My park outside car has a 50 watt blanket on the battery. Based on your theory the blanket isnt really doing much good either, although better than the charger.
However I simply judged the info on Canadian Driver as credible, and didnt really have the time or desire to go into such depth as you did.
Bottom line is in the real world my 8 was parked for 3 weeks before the trickle charger and flooded. Now it can sit 3 weeks and not flood.
Conclusion, the trickle charger works.
My outside car started just fine with out the blanket. Now with the blanket it still starts just fine, only quicker and not as laboured.
Conclusion it works.
In depth research into watts/heat loss/BTU's not needed.

Overall conclusion:
You still are "just some guy on the internet".
A guy who knows more about trickle chargers and their warming capabilities than I do! :D

 

Actually Bean the 50 watt blanket stands to make MUCH more of a difference. It is supplying almost ten times as much heating energy and you are insulating at least four of size sides that aren't insulated in the trickle charger scenario so heat loss will go down substantially. Absolutely your car will start easier with it, my only point was that one wouldn't see those same kind of warming based results from a trickle charger which has a very small power output and is more for maintaining batteries for cars or bikes in storage than anything else. About 80% of that article was correct but there were a couple dubious statements, the 30 minutes of warm up to start charging a cold battery was another one. Based on that every person in Winnipeg who parks outside and always drove less than 30 minutes during every stretch would never charge their batteries. They would all drain very quickly running defrosters and starting at -40 etc. Based on the size of the city I would guess that the average commuting distances are probably less than 30 minutes or not much more so probably half of all the cars should lying around dead. A no charge condition can be caused by a completely drained and frozen battery or a battery that has sat unused for a long time. For that I have had to use the "Activate" feature on my charger to bypass the automatic charger shutoff. A battery in that state will not readily draw a lot of current and the charger then thinks the battery is full and stops charging. Sometimes you can salvage a battery that is like that if you charge it for a while, sometimes not. A good battery in the cold can draw enough current to pin the needle on my 60 Amp charger the second I connect it, no 30 minute wait required. All of that power is not disappearing into outer space, it is charging the battery . . .

In terms of electrolyte level that rx8cited mentioned, guilty . . . I should have but it goes down so slowly in "no maintenance" batteries that I only check the cars about once a year. I usually scrutinize everything very thoroughly on the winter cars in the fall as laying in salty slush and holding on to freezing cold steel tools really sucks. With the 8 I was only focused on driving until the last possible day. Maybe they assume that the dealer will look at it during some scheduled maintenance intervals. I only ever had problems with it going low quickly in one car but its voltage regulator was kind of wacko and it would occasionally overcharge/boil but that's a problem scenario, I don't know if hot weather or that very hot engine has any effect . . .

On the weird side, there was lots of grit like sand in my battery box when I took the battery out. I don't drive on gravel or anything so I don't know where that came from or how it go into the box. I have had squirrels place peanuts under the hoods of my other cars, maybe they had a beach party in there . . .