After recently replacing a battery under warranty for not holding a charge, I went to start the truck after having the new battery for only a couple of weeks and it started slowly two days ago then would not start the next day and is dead as a door nail. The same thing happened with the last battery, but we thought it was just the battery, but now it seems to be more. The alternator and battery when checked shows to be strong and there are no problems are found when it has been checked and once jump started,has no problems starting over and over again throughout the day.
What can you tell us about your driving patterns?
If you typically start the engine, drive only a mile or two, shut down the engine, and repeat this cycle a couple of times every day, even a good battery will be discharged after awhile.
In that type of scenario, you will wind up discharging your battery, simply because it is never being adequately recharged after each engine start.
What is the year/make/model of this mystery mobile? Are the battery cables original and have the terminals at least been cleaned and tightened recently? Special attention would go to the grounds. You may need to check under the insulation to look for corrosion, and may want to think about new cables.
How was the alternator tested? Was the whole system put on a machine for load testing? Or dod someone just stick an electrical meter on it?
You may want to check for a parasitic battery drain.
Its a 99 Dodge dakota, Its all original cables, but terminal on positive side replaced,idk how they tested altenator. Thanks for your help!
Take new battery back to store.
I would take the truck to a shop and have the electrical system checked.
How often and how far do you drive the truck and is the new battery at least as powerful as the factory one?
Usually at least 10 miles a day twice a day sometimes more, sometimes it sits a day on weekends idk about strength
New battery is dead. If u don’t have charger, what do u plan on doing with it? I would ask store to charge it and verify that it is good. No pointing telling them your vehicle is issue. Unless u want to buy another one at different store?
I got it at a place I frequently go for service, they wont charge me for another one plus they will try to find the problem
When this happens, have you had the battery load tested? If so, and it passes as being ok and fully charged, that could mean there is a problem with the starting circuitry, including the starter motor itself. Starter solenoid contacts are notoriously temperature sensitive for example. If on the margin, they might not start when the engine is cold, but will work fine once the engine warms up. For a while at least.
As was previously mentioned, I also think you might have an intermittent battery drain problem. Since you stated the battery won’t hold a charge at some point this could be an indication that the alternator is over charging the battery. This could be due to bad diodes inside the alternator and AC voltage is getting to the battery, damaging it. Checking for AC voltage across the battery while the enigne is running will tell what is going on. There should be less than .1 volt of AC ripple voltage if the alternator diodes are okay.