Battery Testers - Have One?

[diyer2]

Thinking of getting one of these. Looking for reviews if you have one. Brand and model would be nice.

[garagerog]

All 3 of my rigs have sealed batteries so I just use a multi-meter to read the voltage and compare to an on-line state of charge chart to get a rough idea of the batteries condition. With my wife and I being older and high risk in this pandemic era, we're not going out much and I've had to throw a battery charger on 2 of the rigs in the last week, that's about all of the vehicle maintenance I've done in our now low mileage household. Diyer, if you're talking about a load tester, the chain auto parts stores will do that for you for free. From what I've read, rapidly falling voltage after a fresh charge will probably mean that said battery will fail a load test and needs to be replaced.

Edited August 11, 2020 by garagerog

[diyer2]

Thanks garagerog.

I have always used a DVM. 

[diyer2]

I thought I would update this thread. I purchased this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Z67MMGC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My experience leads me to believe it gives you an idea of what condition your battery is in. I recently used it to test a 7 year old battery, it tested at a 63%  rating and below the CCA rating. 

I then tested a new battery, same size group for the same vehicle and it tested 100% with an above CCA rating.

I used it to test a 3 year old ATV battery and it tested at 58% and below the CCA rating. I tested the ATV battery because the ATV seemed like it was turning over a little slower than normal on a cold start. I put a new battery in the ATV and no more slower than normal turning over.

I have always replaced batteries once they are 4 years old to avoid no starts. I thought I would try this device to evaluate its performance, for fun also. 

My truck sits a lot now so I have used this to check and record the batteries condition. The history of the battery condition shows over a 2 year span that it is failing. 

Nothing is perfect and batteries are not simple to test due a lot of factors but this tool gives me testing results that seem worthy of the cost.

 

 

 

[KARNUT]

My experience with batteries are once a cell goes bad it over. I’ve had batteries give out after a recent test showing good, then it wasn’t. Years doesn’t seem to matter as much as usage. A high mileage driver is going to get more out of a battery than a in town driver. I've had batteries in low usage vehicles with aftermarket alarms eat batteries in two years. Go dead if not driven every two weeks. When I was trading in trucks every two, three years I never replaced a battery. Even with 125-150K miles. My wife’s 2011 Genesis with 125K miles is on battery number Two. Same with my 2015 CRV. My wife’s Acura a 2001 is on 4 with 30K miles. I would charge or drive every two weeks. I recently put a tender on it. Better late than never.