Battery Dead?
 

OK, I have a late '04 Base (registered 1/05), 50K miles, bought it 5 years ago with $40+K miles. Had a nice 2-hour drive Friday (2 days ago), fun, top-down. Went out today to start it and everything was dead. Did the normal footwell fuse charge and opened the frunk, jumped the battery, all fine and drove it hard for 20 minutes. But, what the heck was going on?

During that 20 minute hard drive... did you take the car to any auto parts store to have them test your battery... for free... in two minutes?

It's a rhetorical inquiry. We know the answer.

Just had annual servicing a week ago - presumably, they checked the battery.

"Presume" absolutely nothing....................

Nobody does a proper load test. Sounds like a bad cell.

Sounds like a faulty battery, IME. There was a point on mine I’d replace them every 4 years as they were crapping the bed at that point. This last go-around lasted longer, and went with an AGM.

Just to put an end to this - I just needed a new battery, as we all expected. The old one was nearly 8 years old. I'm the second owner of this car, but I've only had it for 5 years. I guess a couple of hours of driving two days before were not enough to keep it charged - that's what surprised me. I was told by one of the mechanics where I had it replaced that batteries last only 4 1/2 to 5 years - as one of you mentioned.

Thanks for all the comments.

Mine is running on 6 years... and the SoCal heat is no favor to it. Likely pre-emptively I'll replace it.

What battery did you get? I've a Tip... calling for a larger battery.

:cheers: