It's Over 9...years.

[vakkotaur]

I tend to expect a car battery to last about five years. Maybe a bit more, possibly a bit less. This Monday (31 August 2015) I bought a new car battery. The one it replaced was installed 5 June 2006, so it served for over nine years. I am impressed, and I hope the new one lasts as long.

Comments

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

That really is phenomenal! ... Hopefully they will never leave you stranded either ...

[pharwarner.livejournal.com]

Nine years! I started reading your post in terms of "five years". But you're right. Most batteries I've had (or known of!) since 1993 lasted 9 years. "We only guarantee them for two, you know." Huh. but they last a lot longer than that... My recent experience has been a little worse, to my annoyance. A 2011 Camry that needed a new one after 4.6 years. Hrumph. A $220 battery at that... But...

The long lifers are those vehicles without additional draw from ancillary systems. 10 and 12 years on the second (still going?)'56 Beetle. 13 years (more? that was when I bought the '62 in '99?) Before I replaced it at the same time I as I needed to put a new battery on the Karmann Ghia, just because the Beetle's was 13 years old or so.

Come down to to this weekend... K-G's battery is both flat and collapsed after six weeks of holiday enforced disuse. Buy a new one... How's Beetle's battery? Takes five minutes to charge back to capacity. The difference? KG has a modern immobilizer and a digital radio/cd player....

I'm happy with valve AM and 9 year battery life in my vehicles!

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I still have the Corolla with the AM/FM radio (and tape player) that uses some power for standby channel memory. I do have the XM receiver and GPS, but those are truly off when the car is off. There is the ham radio (VHF/UHF transceiver) which uses a trifle for memory maintenance, but I had left it on and simply on receive drew things too far down for comfort - and the sulfate residue around both terminals indicated that things were Not Right. Curiously, I don't recall replacing the battery before 9 years ago, so the original might well have lasted 8 years (9 since manufacture) as well.

I was surprised that Jay was surprised I expected 5 years from a battery. He expected less. As much stress as cold and cold starts are (I buy the most Cold Cranking Amps that I can reasonably afford) evidently the heat of Houston is harder on the batteries. I recall he felt fortunate if things last four years.

It will be interesting to see how long the new battery for his car lasts if he keeps it long enough to find out. That battery is a huge beast, but it's expected to start a fair sized diesel engine.