Do batteries go bad with time and little or no use?

[Panoscopic]

It has been three years since I've replaced my battery. In those three years, I put about 1,000 miles - mostly very short trips to the store or just working on it. Now the battery won't hard a charge worth a darn. Ater a full charge with the battery charger, after about 4 days without running it, it needs a charge again. Its not too cold here in North Texas.

Either the battery has gone bad or there may be some power drain I have to look for. It is supposed to be a "3 year" battery and the replacement period has expired.

Any ideas? Is it normal to replace a battery under this kind of use?

[joe]

Yup, the worst thing you can do to a battery once it's been put into use is not use it often.
I deal with this constantly having a lot of rigs and never being home much.

[carrotman]

Batteries supposedly have a "memory". But they remember discharge a lot better than they remember fully charged.

[tgreese]

You have a DVM with an ammeter? Disconnect the positive battery cable, and try testing the amount of current flowing between the cable and the battery post.

From http://www.usbr.gov/power/data/fist/fist3_6/fist3602.htm
If the battery gets too little charging, unconverted sulfate remains on the plates too long and hardens. The longer plates stay in less-than-full-charge condition, the harder the sulfate becomes and the more difficult it is to reconvert. When new, the sulfate is easily converted back to soft active materials by a normal charge, but a long overcharge is required to remove it after becoming hard. Sulfate accumulates unnoticed, a little on each charge, if charging is not enough to eliminate all the sulfate. This residue build-up continues until a substantial portion of ampere-hour capacity is lost.

Thus, if you let the battery run down and stay down, it's going to deteriorate faster. As I recall, the excess sulfate pushes out of the lead grids, where it settles on the bottom of the battery. Then it's kaput.

[Kaiserjeeps]

I took my 4 month old battery out of my wag and topped it off with a trickle charge. Put it on the shelf and now 2 years later It's dead and won't take a charge. Maybe I should just put the darn thing back together!

[tgreese]

I've heard that batteries sitting on metal shelves or concrete floors will self-discharge.

[tgreese]

Useful link of battery "lore"
http://www.uuhome.de/william.darden/carfaq14.htm

[joe]

Tim, glad ya found a site that dispells the concrete floor/battery thing. It's been a 'long' time since that's been a problem. ;)

[osceola]

absoflippinlootely

[Panoscopic]

Are other batteries less prone to detioration over time? Would an Optima last better?

[joe]

Optima don't last any longer and have less CCA power than the wet batteries. I ran dual Optima's in my CJ and they lasted about 4 years which is how long and decent $70 wet battery should last. Only advantage I can see to Optimas is that they're sealed in case of a roll-over.