Should I get a new car battery?

WhoisDannie

I have an 11 plate Hyundai i10 that still has the original battery and I have no problems with it starting even with the headlights switched on.

One of my grandsons is interested in electronics and has just bought a multimeter so is going around measuring everything he can with it and decided to measure the voltage of my car battery.

First thing in the morning before starting the car it measures 12.4 volts and when the headlights are switched on it drops to 11.7 volts. 

When the engine is running the voltage is 14.1 volts so the alternator works.

According to him the battery is knackered and I should get a new battery.

Is it and should I?
 

tacpot12

It is likley that the battery is approaching the end of its useful life. By coincidence we have the same issue with the battery on our car (2006 Ford Mondeo 1.8 petrol engine - the engine off voltage is 12.4v with no load).  I think this must be it's second battery as it has the wrong battery fitted - it should have a slightly smaller battery that Ford fitted to petrol Mondeos, but actually has a Ford battery that was fitted to the diesel Mondeos because they needed more power to turn over the engine.

Our car is starting fine, and so I have decided to monitor the battery voltage every two to three weeks and will replace it if it goes down any lower than 12.4v. I've decided I'm going to stick with the same capacity battery as I have at present as we tend to only do short trips. 

The batteries don't last forever, so the cost of replacing them is just one of the ongoing maintenance costs of running a car.   

If you do decide to o ahead, have a look at this company as a potential supplier. I've not boght from them, but when I decide to buy a new battery for my car, I was going to give them a try. They are a good deal cheaper than Euro Car Parts: Car Batteries - Motorcycle Batteries - Leisure Batteries - Cheap Prices! (tayna.co.uk) 

daveyjp

The meter he is using is pretty useless at measuring battery health.  Voltage reading can be fine, but amps are needed to start a car.  

If it starts and runs with no issues carry on.

cymruchris

It depends on how often you use your car, and how long the journeys are. If the car is being used often for decent journeys, particularly as we're heading into warmer weather, I'd not bother changing it unless it's giving you headaches. Warmer weather means the car is easier to start, and so the battery has less demand than a cold December morning. It might become an issue when we get back around to November - but for now, if it isn't actually broke, I wouldn't fix it,

TheBanker

My car went through the whole of winter with no problems. About a fortnight ago, on a nice sunny day it refused to start.

RAC came out and said my battery was knackered and needed replacing. The car's 10 years old and it was the original battery, so not a bad innings really. But I was surprised it died now, having not caused me any issues during the winter. 

chrisw

They do occasionally fail suddenly but usually, as it gets weak, you tend to notice that the starter doesn't spin over quite as fast as it used to.

Unless it would be an absolute disaster if it wouldn't start one day, I'd leave it for now until we get the colder weather and see what happens. 

If you're worried about it, many car accessory shops will do a load test on it for you, although they do have a vested interest in selling you a new one. 

fatbelly

I've had batteries fail suddenly and it's a pain.

I now replace them after 6-8 years. If yours is 11 years old it's had a good life and needs to retire.

TheBanker

fatbelly said:

I've had batteries fail suddenly and it's a pain.

I now replace them after 6-8 years. If yours is 11 years old it's had a good life and needs to retire.

Me too - the one that failed a few weeks ago was at home, but it took the RAC a couple of hours to get to me (I have Home Start) and basically I wasted about half a day when I wanted to go out.

I've had one fail on a cold winter morning in previous car. Half the country seemed to have batteries fail at the same time and the RAC said it might be the next day before they could get to me (they were, understandably, prioritising people who were stuck at the side of road over people who were at home). That one, my neighbour took me to buy a replacement and we fitted it ourselves.

I'm kicking myself though - when I took out my RAC cover they offered battery replacement insurance for an extra fee. 'Don't need that', I thought! Would have been cheaper than paying for the replacement myself. Ah well... 

Car_54

I agree with the above. A 12-y-o battery is on borrowed time.
Shop around now and get a good value replacement at your leisure, or wait until it fails at an inconvenient time and pay twice as much.

LunaLater

Batteries are something that I do replace as soon as they start struggling, but yours seems fine.

If it was not starting well or giving you error messages that’d be different, but it’s not.

The only reason I’d change if I were you was if it was the start of winter and I was leaving it outside for a while and had to be certain that it’d start. At the start of summer though, no.

sandy700

tacpot12 said:

If you do decide to o ahead, have a look at this company as a potential supplier. I've not boght from them, but when I decide to buy a new battery for my car, I was going to give them a try. They are a good deal cheaper than Euro Car Parts: Car Batteries - Motorcycle Batteries - Leisure Batteries - Cheap Prices! (tayna.co.uk) 

They may be cheaper than Euro Car Parts but when you add on delivery and fitting they are not