Hello: I have 2006 Hyundai Azera 3.8 liter V6 and recent dealer insepctioin showed the battery is in good condition. Since I may have battery problem in the 5th year, I am thinking of replacing the battery with an offer from Advanced Auto. Should I do or wait for a later date? Thanks.
Wait a few more years. Others are sure to disagree.
Up to you. Preventative maintenance is never a bad thing, and batteries are usually fairly hard pressed to make it longer than 5 years. On the other hand, worst case scenario is that the car won’t start some time in the future, you’ll get it jumped, and drive to the battery store.
It really depends on you. Are you OK with having to get a jump sometime in the future, or is that something you’d really want to avoid? In the overall scheme of car maintenance, batteries are pretty cheap.
Are you way down south or way up north? The reason I ask is because we have had a few discussions on this board about batteries, and after talking to a friend a couple of weeks who was in auto parts and now sets up and services auto parts store computers nationwide I have a new understanding of batteries.
His basic observation was in hot climates batteries batteries just suddenly up and die and CCa is not such a factor, as he says “Heat kills batteries.”, thus the various responses that CCA does not matter. In cold climates the CCA is is indeed tied to battery life and cold weather performance so get the most CCA’s you can.
So in answer to your question if you live down south go ahead and replace it, if you live up north you will get slow crank warning when it is time for a new one.
Thanks for the reply. If I replace the battery is it better to go with the dealer or with autoparts shop? If I go with the autopart store, should I be worried about car electronics being messed up?
The dealership will undoubtedly charge a REALLY high price for a battery that might have been sitting in their parts department for a very long time. On the other hand, you could go to a place like Wal-Mart and get a relatively fresh battery for a fraction of the cost of what the dealer charges.
Personally, I get my batteries from Costco. Their Kirkland batteries are made by Johnson Controls, on the same assemblyline as the Sears Diehard battery, with the same specs as the Sears Diehard battery, but with a longer warranty and a price of about 1/2 of what Sears charges. The only downside of getting the battery at Costco is that you have to install it yourself. If you want someone else to do the installation for you, then a place like Wal-Mart might be your best bet.
I go to Walmart, get their ‘better’ battery. Quick, inexpensive, they work fine.
Our 2003 Toyota 4Runner still has the original battery and starts right up without a problem. I will probably replace the battery before winter, however.
Before anyone replaces the battery on their vehicle, here’s a precaution that should be taken seriously.
http://www.aa1car.com/library/battery_disconnect_problems.htm
Tester
There’s nothing wrong with replacing it now if that’s what you prefer. I do the same around the five-year point, since I keep my cars for eight to ten years and I’d very likely need a battery at some point anyway.
The original battery in my wife’s Nissan lasted a full 7 years, and we have cold winters here. I would give it a few more years, unless you live in Minnesota and park outside in the winter without a block heater.
I just replaced my battery in my Infiniti FX35 after 6 years. I noticed the startup was not quite as quick… I found a chart that suggested that you can test the voltage after your car sits overnight to see where your battery stands (a good/fresh battery will be about 12.65 volts, mine was 12.19 volts and everything below 12.00 is pretty much toast)… the second test is to start the engine and measure the voltage again (to see if your alternator is boosting the voltage… my reading was 14.65 volts which suggested that the alternator was doing its job, but my battery was headed south… Happy starting! J
That was very educational, especially for someone like me who’s never owned a car made later than 1984.
A low state-of-charge by itself does not mean a car starting battery is (going) bad.
OTOH battery life is greatly shortened if it spends much time less than full.
If a car is driven infrequently (less than once a day) and mostly short trips there might not be enough running time to keep the battery charged.
It can take several hours to thoroughly charge a substantially discharged (<75%)lead-acid battery.
This is where a battery tender or other small automatic charger comes in handy.
Since I only drive my car 2-3X a week, in the winter I charge the battery for a few hours once a month.
Keeps it perky!
I don’t know what kind of use or climate the battery in your Infiniti saw for 6 years,
but I’m just saying the low rest voltage, 12.19V, doesn’t tell the whole story of a batteries condition.
While I originally said to wait, as a 6 year interval is reasonable preventative maintenance IMHO, a few of the respondents incited a question in my mind: what is your driving environment? I personally am never ina a dangerous position if my battery fails, but if I regularly drove through NYC, LA, Liberty City or somewhere like that I’d be inclined not to want to push my luck. A breakdown for me is simply an inconvenience, but a breakdown in a bad neighborhood is a safety issue.
I get all my batteries from Advance Auto (AutoCraft Gold). They seem to stop functioning after about 4 or 5 years; just like the OEM batteries. I had to get a Bosch battery for one of the cars when it developed an internal short. I’m on my 3rd battery in 2 years. I’d avoid the Bosch battery. The good news is that Advance Auto Parts doesn’t sell Bosch.
It sounds like you’re saying that cities with a lot of black people are ipso facto bad neighborhoods. Have you SEEN Deliverance? If you’re Elizabeth Smart, you can get snatched off the street and held prisoner for over a year in Salt Lake City. I’m not sure cartalk.com is the place for your kind of “generalizing”.
Do not make my statement about the safety of a breakdown being taken into consideration when deciding whether to preemptively get a new battery into a racist comment. That is not only completely incorrect, but appalls and disgusts me. I hope those are not the same distorted “glasses” through which you view the rest of the world. It makes me sick when people turn non-racist comments into racist comments. It’s “baiting” at its worst.
Don’t do this. It’s wrong. If that’s the way your thought processes work, please do not respond to any of my future posts.
That’s funny. When I saw the comment (which I agree with), I didn’t picture any particular race as being the problem. We have bad neighborhoods in our city. It’s due to a small number of the people that live there (most of the people there are good people), and it has nothing to do with if they are black, white, or whatever.