2014 Buick Verano I’ve had 4 batteries put in. They tell me I don’t drive it enough low mileage. This is an excuse should be recalled it’s electrical battery being drained. Only on Verano with all the bells and whistles. So aggravating.
There will not be a recall for your battery problem . Since the Covid lockdown many people have had battery problems from not driving enough . You are just going to plan on taking the long way of what few errands you run or take it for a 45 minute drive at least every 2 weeks.
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Recalls are for safety, emissions and such. A dead battery–or even multiple dead batteries–doesn’t qualify. If the batteries are in fact going bad there might be a problem but the most likely cause is from the car sitting. I’d be interested to know why the batteries were replaced. A battery goes dead for a reason and you need to know why before you replace it. You can take Volvo’s advice and drive it more or invest in a battery tender or “trickle charger.”
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Provided you’ve verified that nothing is staying turned on when the car isn’t being used, no glove compartment, trunk, dome lights, etc, the battery-tender (trickle charger) suggestion above is probably your best choice. Works fine as long as you park your car in your garage or at least your own driveway. You don’t have to hook it up and turn it on every day, just occasionally, enough to keep the battery charged. An ordinary car-battery charger that shops and diyers use all the time, less than $50, will work as well.
So why do you have this problem? 2014. That’s why. Car designers these days are told by their marketing department that their new cars have to have lots of electronic gadgets and gizmos in order to sell well, so of course they put them in. And those gadgets and gizmos use battery power even when the car isn’t being used.
It reminds me, the same thing applies to bicycles in the 1990’s. Shop owners discovered the more speeds a bicycle model had, the easier it was to sell. 15 speeds would sell better than 10. 18 better than 15. 21 better than 18, etc etc. Pretty soon bicycles were have 24 speeds or more. Eventually riders decided they didn’t need all those speeds, and even worse, they were making riding the bike too complicated. A lot of popular bicycles now sport 7 speeds or so, which is plenty for most riders.
Don’t use a trickle charger!
Tester
She wrote: “They tell me I don’t drive enough”. It would be best if she told us clearly how often she drives and how far she goes, so that we can agree or disagree with that diagnosis. Also, is she buying a battery when all the old one needs is a charge? What would others think of the idea of installing a battery disconnect?
That can cause all kinds of problems on some vehicles.
https://www.aa1car.com/library/battery_disconnect_problems.htm
Tester
Tester’s link is great. One recommendation is to use a marine (deep-cycle) battery when use of the car is infrequent.
To me that is a good idea my wife’s car has one now and quite a few years back I had one on a truck I owned both for a parasitic draw but I don’t know if that would work on all cars as a lot of them has things that have to be reset after the battery is disconnected before they will start again.
Most opinions after a Google search say the deep cycle battery will work but not reccomended . It seems they don’t really give enough CCA and they might shorten the altenater life.
You can buy deep cycle batteries with high CCA’s.
But they’re not cheap.
Tester.
That is what I would do, if the parasitic drain cannot be found, or if it is inherent in the design of this car. If using a battery disconnect causes any major problems, then it sounds like it’s time to get rid of the car and buy something else–preferably an older model without all the silly “high tech” features.
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Given the used car market right now, that’s foolish. If a parasitic drain is ruled out (and I’m not really sure it was based on the OP’s first post, it sounds like they’re just replacing batteries and blaming the low mileage without looking at WHY) and it’s determined that driving habits are why the batteries keep draining out, then either change driving habits or put a charger on the battery when not in use. Better the vehicle you know the history on than something completely unknown.
OP, ask your shop to measure the parasitic drain current. That’s the amount of current drain the battery experiences after the car is turned off, doors locked, everything off, and has been sitting for a couple hours. Let us know what they tell you. That number is 2 mA on my truck, 15 mA on my Corolla. On newer cars it is usually in the 40- 50 mA range, seldom more than 100 mA. The higher it is, the faster the battery will drain with the vehicle not driven.
I didn’t start my Corolla for close to a year due to Covid-related issues, but when I did, it cranked and started ok, albeit the cranking was little slow the first time. 6 year old battery.