17 Chevy Malibu battery

You can pick up a battery for the 1.5 turbo engine at Advance Auto for ~200.

https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/c3/car-batteries/15597

Ed B

That’s what I was thinking while reading this thread too. I’ve never had a battery fail within 3 years on a new car, so no personal experience, but it seems like a new car battery warranty should run 36 months at least.

OP there are lots of possibilities here besides a failed battery caused by the auto-stop.

  • It’s possible the battery is still good, just not fully charged due to your style of driving, presumably a lot of short trips. Before replacing it w/a new one, suggest to your shop to just recharge it using their battery charger.

  • A fully charged battery can also be easily tested using a load-test or conductance-test, then you’d know for sure if it is good or not.

  • There’s a slight possibility the auto-stop isn’t causing the battery problem, but instead there’s a problem w/the alternator or the charging system algorithm.

  • Finally, the battery and alternator could be working fine but there’s a problem w/the starter motor or associated cranking circuity.

TSB’s 15-06-03-002G, 16-NA-371, 03-06-03-004U pertain to the battery and the battery warranty for this vehicle. Googling those numbers might show you those documents; otherwise ask for a copy at the dealership. From what I see the battery specification is critical for this vehicle, so if further testing proves you need a replacement, best to purchase a battery that meets GM specs. Purchasing a substandard battery might work ok and save a few bucks on my 90’s Corolla, but false economy on your newer car, what w/all the electronic gizmos and gadgets they use now.

Note: If you have an automatic transmission, from what I can tell the auto-stop featured is disabled if the transmission is in P or N.

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I’ve read nothing here that makes me think this was caused by the auto start/stop. The battery was dead for some reason, obviously it couldn’t start the car. But why was the battery dead???

Yes, good point. Could be something as simple as a phantom drain current somewhere is causing the battery to discharge.

Or simply a defective battery.

I dunno, constantly starting the engine and driving a few minutes as in stop and go traffic might not be enough to keep the battery charged. Just sayin’ you would not use the feature on the open road, just in heavy stop and go traffic. The other thing is that batteries like tires, are covered by a separate warranty on a new car and may not be the dealer that handles it. Nice try but that feature just doesn’t make much sense just to get higher mileage ratings for the feds. Tail wagging the dog once again, of course in my humble opinion.

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But they upgraded that battery alternator and starter for this. Any problem should be covered under warranty.

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Batteries fail and it is usually noticed when starting the engine so the auto start only revealed that the battery was failing, the question is; did the auto start wear out the battery? Probably not.

Most of the batteries that I replaced last summer were on 2016 vehicles and some on 2017 vehicles.

The battery is covered by the basic factory warranty of 3 years/36,000 miles, it is not unusual for a vehicle that is more that two years old to have more than 36,000 miles.

You’d think the engineers would put in some sort of control measure where the autostop wouldn’t engage (turn the engine off) if the battery voltage was too low. I was under the impression that Ford did this with their programming, but I may be incorrect.

I mean a dead battery is a pain if you’re in a parking lot trying to start your car. But it would be a whole nother kinda pain if it wouldn’t restart at an intersection.

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I drove one of these for as a company car. Hated the auto stop feature - and no you cannot turn it off. Found where people were buying a extra hood latch. There is a switch on the hood latch that will disable the feature if the hood is open. So people were buying an extra hood latch leaving the original one in for the hood to latch into and plugging into the extra one. Just mounting it somewhere. The car thinks the hood is open so the feature is disabled. Put everything back if you are selling the car. If I remember right the part was pretty cheap. To me it seemed like alot of wear and tear on the vehicle starting and stopping all the time.

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Interesting. You should be able to locate the switch and re-wire the thing to make it think the hood is open. I did that with my malfunctioning low coolant light and just grounded the wire out.

But none of this addresses what the real problem is - something is making this almost new car drain its battery.

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 and whatever the underlying problem may be, this issue should be covered under at least one of the vehicle’s warranties.

If the battery was merely discharged it would have passed the performance test and the test equipment would advise to recharge the battery.

Auto-stop may be part of their emissions package. If so they probably aren’t allowed to provide a way for the customer to turn it off. @kinsha 's post above suggest there may a simple work-a-round. Doing that may introduce unintended consequences though


Some vehicles do have a button to cancel the start/stop .

Still, it looked to me like the alternator is a standard 130 amp one. That is hardly high powered enough to recharge a battery with lots of re-starts and few miles in between.

A regular battery is not useful with autostop. It’ll work for a while but you’ll have premature failure due to the extra stop start cycles. The required battery is a new type. It’s called “Absorbed Glass Mat” They are available now. But, unfortunately, very costly.
You can avoid using autostop by changing your stopping technique. When you stop for whatever reason, just lift your foot off the brake before the car comes to a full stop. Also, a more gentle braking action will help you a bit
 The feature is controlled by multiple driving conditions and engine conditions. No way to shut it off. Unless the dealer is willing to disable it for you. Maybe a review of your owner’s manual will be more helpful.
I have it on my Impala and find it helpful for normal traffic situations.

You are correct. P or N will disable Autostop
 Not much help in traffic, though. You are also correct about the battery type being critical.
Your possibilities are all good possibilities. Well thought out.
I have a 2015 Impala with the Autostop. I like it. No problems so far.

Autostop (?) worked seamlessly on the Cruze I rented a year or so ago. My hunch is something other than that feature is the reason for the problem on the OP’s car, and it hasn’t been well diagnosed as yet.

It would help to know the OP’s driving habits, to help determine if too-often very short trips with frequent stops and restarts is a factor.