Ode to a battery...
 

Got a call from the wife before; she was at work, and when she went to leave her truck wouldn't start. Went to bail her out, and it turned out the battery was kaput. This is the orig battery to the truck, which is a 98 Ford Ranger. Can't really complain about a battery that lasted 10 years...:cool:

That is quite amazing. I would definitely run down to the store and pick up another one of whatever that Ranger came with!

And you live in Jersey?!?! That really was an awesome battery!

Yeah, I'll prolly stab in another Motorcraft. The only other vehicles I recall having long lasting batteries are Miatas, and I think alot of their longevity
comes from the fact that the battery is mounted in the truck, away from the nasty underhood environment.

ive used farm and fleet batteries in my truck and its been about 3 or 4 years no problems. my car has some autozone silver or something like that.

still kind amazes me that modern batteries will start fine one day then all of a sudden up and die and be flat dead in a few hours. my dad says he can remember when you could tell your battery was about to die about a week in advance where it would slow crank and dim headlights etc...

unstable bob -

Wow. Batteries used to live in fear of me. These days, if I can get 5 years, that's a win, and the five years is probably only because of the car chime.

But 10 years? Is that in cat years or dog years?

CarloSW2

I had a battery only last me about 2000 miles once. Of course that was over a span of slightly over 12 years!!! (battery came from my dad and my parts store we had in the late 80's) The car basically sat with a trickle charger on it most of the time. There were some years I was away where the car got no exercise at all. Finally up and changed it a few years ago now it has a Duralast Gold - Autozone - which is a great battery IMO.

Well, I have 7 cats and a Pug, so they can be "either or!" :D Actually, we bought the truck in the same year we were married, so it is easy to keep track of how old the truck is, and how long I've been married. But if ya wanna hear a "bummer," my marriage date is Sept 11, 1998. And we all know what happened on Sept 11, 2001...:(

unstable bob -

:( ... Find out if it was Sept 10 or Sept 12 on some other part of the world when you were married. If your wifey agrees, maybe you can celebrate on that day instead.

CarloSW2

Or, keep the happy event on Sept 11 instead of letting some goat humping jackwad in another nation make it a sad event.

It depends on the nature of failure.... If it fails due to physical damage -- it's likely to be close to instant death. If it fails due to poor maintenance - close to instant, you may be able to see signs - and you might be able to recondition. But... poor maintenance can lead to physical damage :/

A maintained battery will slowly reach it's ultimate death. The last battery I had felt like it was going to go for a month. I thought I just needed a tune up only because of the extra cranking time.