Battery issue?

[whytry]

optima red top, 3 years old with nothing on voltmeter says 12.17 volts. Start turning things on I get these various readings:

Ign on, but don't start - 12.10
fuel pump - 11.93
Water pump - 11.75
Fuel and Water - 11.40
Fuel, water, try to start - 6.99, let off attempting to start goes back to 11.00..... It cranked very slowly, then just clicked. Now immediately afterwards I shut off fuel pump and water pump tried to start again, cranked very slow again, but then after about 10 sec of holding key in start position it turned over enough to start. Would this be a battery issue?

For power I am running from trunk - 1 ott welding cable to starter, 1 ott welding cable for ground, grounded in 2 places, battery to frame and battery to body. I then ran 4 gauge from the frame ground to the front clip. Another from front clip to motor, and a ground strap from alternator mount to frame. I would think this is good for grounds, right? I am also running from starter to alternator a 4 gauge wire..... Should I get a new battery?

[HILROD]

Try a load tester on the battery. Auto stores can check it. If the battery checks out check the grounds. Trunk mounted batterys, on a unibody car, can be a bit of trouble. Especially rusty ones. I've had to run full grounds, to the front, to keep everything electric happy.

[chicane67]

Load test it. Cheap and easy. Free is cheap.

Id lean to say its is a battery issue. 12.7VDC is about "resting norm". Red tops dont like to cycle or sit too long without a trickle.

When you go - fuel, h20, start and it reads below 11.0VDC... that is one hell of a draw. A grounding issue wouldnt cause that. Dropping a cell would... and a load test will show just that. I'll bet... that if you load test it... the guy tells you that it fails and is only putting out about 125-150cca during the test.

(I just went through this same senario about 4 months ago.. LOL)

[whytry]

So far this is what I did. I put a trickle charger on it overnight 2 amp, came out in the morning showed full charge, took voltmeter and checked got 13.2, so I unplugged the charger and checked volts again, got 12.6. Came back an hour later 12.6. So from I can see there is little current draw when the car is shut off. I then go to start it and again it did the exact same thing its been doing. Checked volts 11.0, put charger back on now says needs charge.

Took battery out took it to Autozone, they tested it said it needs a charge, charged battery tested again, bad battery. When they 1st tested it it was at 64 CCA!!! They hooked the charger up CCA jumped from 64 to 439 in 5 seconds, from the guy working there he said that usually means the battery went bad. But just in case he wanted to charge it and test again. So we did and bad battery.

What sucked was I have been dealing with this for a little while now and I have the optima red top with 3 year replacement free, so I go get my receipt and of course its out of warranty, but only by 17 days. The store would not do anything except give me a prorated portion back towards a new one, which came out to $60 off... Long story short, or shorter I called Optima customer service and the guy there after talking to his boss said they would replace the battery for me for free since its just barely out of warranty!!! They are off today but he said monday morning he is shipping me out a new one.

[Steve68]

Now thats customer service!!!!

[LS6 Tommy]

You can pretty much be sure any battery fresh off the charger that isn't around 12.4 VDC is a goner.

Tommy

[MonzaRacer]

Anything over 12.6 is surface charge.
Take any battery that comes off the charger and hit it for 3 seconds at 100 amps to remove that and it should be around 12.6.
Standard 12 volt battery makes 2.1 volts per cell.
To actually test a battery thats in question (as I worked at autozone I liked the olde battery charges very much, dont know what they got now)I like using my Associated 600 amp carbon pile tester.
I load the battery at 1/2 the rated COLD CRANKING AMPS for 15 seconds and it shouldnt drop below specified voltage specs(Id have to look them up again I forget )and at 60 degrees(if I remember correctly) it shouldnt drop below 9.6 volts by the end of 15 seconds.
Trust me when I hit the bad batteries with my tester if its dead or trashed it will fall on its ass!
Lee
PS the current capacitance testers do work well but the old 100 amp handheld toaster tester is a joke and only good for testing a small lawn and garden battery.