Battery Question
 

AS usual when I go out of town the wife has car issues. Its a Lexus ES 350 2011 model. Didn't have any issues that are associated with a battery going bad. Got in the car and it would not start at all. Got a friend to come over and jump the car off. She brought it to the Lexus dealer (she didn't know that this would not be covered under the warranty). They said she needed a new battery. So $238 later she has a new battery. Would a battery just go bad with no warning, slow start, etc???
The real kicker, I get home today, open the hood and the battery cover is gone and all but 2 pins have been re installed to hold down the engine cover and the 2 that were left weren't even pressed in. I raised hell with the dealership and I'm going in to get all new replacement parts.....

For $238 that must one heck of a great battery. :(

Similar issue on the wife's Toyota Sienna a few years back. Battery was literally 5 years to the day and refused to start with no warning. Toyota battery was cheaper than a Lexus one though ;)

Yep, modern batteries often go from seeming to work perfectly to being dead as a door nail instantly. The battery had likely been on a slow decline for a bit and then just died. That, in my experience, is the most common failure method these days. Or you may get 1 slow start that doesn't register because it's the only one, and then the next time, nothing.

Sometimes they are so dead that a jump start won't even get the thing going.

The tell-tale warning that you needed a new battery was when you said "took it to the dealership". That said, 6-7 years is about the max for a battery.

A battery is made up of 6 cells. Typically, one cell goes bad (shorts out). And I agree, 7 years is long enough for most batteries.

You do not need to go to a dealer for a battery. I think BMW wanted 500-600 to replace the one on the X5. I think the OEM was Bosch and Pep Boys replaced it $120-140. I was going to replace it myself, but it was included in the battery price.

Thanks for the info guys. By the way I didn't take it to the dealer, the wife did. But I was out of town on business and she was thinking what ever it was that the warranty would cover it.

Buddy coming to town. I went over to nearbye rental for last minute work. Car dead on location. It wasn't the shift interlock with a few tests with the DVOM in the glovebox. It was the battery. 9yo Mich battery from the sticker label. Croaked with no warning. Not even a hickup. Called. Buddy arrived. We went to Sears got a new one. Everything good to go.

I had an SC400 for years, my parents a LS400 forever....out of warranty visits to a Lexus stealership only happened one time for me...it was convenient and on the way to work :(.
Find an indy....that's a total ripoff for a battery...YMMV.

Batteries seem to commit suicide. One day fine, next day DOA. One day my old Vette died at 6000 RPM, first gear. Dash is dark. Trailer it home, take the battery to the Zone for a test. At least 30 minutes after the event the battery is so hot I cant hold my hand on it. Crazy.

They go with out warning. 2000 Camry, started up just fine. Drove 2/10ths of a mile to the convenience store, then would not crank 5 minutes later.

Got a new battery and all was fine. A year later, all of a sudden it started to crank slowly. I cleaned the terminals, grounds, and connections, and drove with a slow starter for a few days. Turns out the battery would drop voltage real quick, like 12 volts to 8 in a matter of minutes. It was replaced under warranty.

Have you priced a Porsche battery at the dealership lately? $238 sounds pretty good, comparatively. I've been retired from Porsche about 7 years and they were probably twice that back then. We have an Interstate store here that carries every kind of battery, including phones, etc. IMO Interstate is one of the best available.

batteries seem to last exactly 5 years for me here, regardless if I buy a good or a bad one. It seems like they usually give a tiny bit of warning with one or 2 slow starts before completely dieing.

Except the porsche that sits in the cool garage, with the battery away from the engine heat, and basically no parasitic current draw. I get around 10 years on these. I guess it doesnt hurt that it is a very low compression engine.

238$ seems about right at a dealership these days unfortunately. decent batteries are 90$ at autozone so probably 2x that for oem marked equivelants.

are we married to the same person?

I was getting so many calls about something broke when I could not do anything about it I told her to stop calling unless it was something positive.

Hate to tell you but that's the new normal for a modern "long" battery...

I paid more for a 991 battery last year and more again for a Range rover one recently... Both self installed.

In other breaking news, the average modern car is now $40K, 356 coupes are now $80-100K, and Trump is president ;-)
(sorry, just basic sarcasm, not directed at the person I quoted)

There HAS to be a difference is design from "back in the old days" for higher capacity and keeping the prices low. In the past, a battery just got weaker and weaker. It was easy to hear the starter was sluggish. Time for a new battery. The last three batteries died an instant death. One minute they spun the started like they should, and a few minutes later, dead dead dead. I had one battery that could not even be jumped. It was like it was disconnected internally.

Now I just replace the battery at about 5 years. Even if it is fine. They always die at a very inconvenient time.

Yes, batteries can have a 'stroke' and die. The shoddy installation is no surprise - the 'tech' probably only received .2 of a labor hour from start to finish.

Interesting note. BMW battery replacement is quite involved. You have to 'register' the new battery to the vehicle via scan tool. The idea is the electrical system tailors the charge rate and duration as needed for the age. Also indicates to the owner when the battery is end of its useful life so replacement can be anticipated prior to complete failure.

That's why that job is so pricey

I wonder if the binary viability of modern batteries is due to the car than to the battery itself; in my older cars, I still get the classic dying battery symptoms - slow to start, dim headlights, etc. When the original battery in my 2003 M3 died earlier this year, it was fine one day and dead the next - no warning whatsoever.

From my own personal experience and internet anecdotes, modern batteries don't last as long, either - some major change was made such that you only get 2 or 3 years before they die off.

Yea, my wife used to have a Mercedes. The battery died and I replaced it. The car would not run right, and the windows would not roll up and radio was dead. We had to go to the dealer and pay for them to hook it to the computer and re-program the car. Even the sunroof. It was almost as much as the battery.

I know one guy that took the battery out of his 997 for the winter storage time. The car would not run at all when he tried to fire it up for spring. He had to have it flatbed towed to the dealer.

^^^^That's largely because of the huge swings the today's amperage cycles. Also parasitic draw is the norm in modern vehicles.