Heard this decades ago and generally abide by it.......but I have to wonder if there is any basis in fact to support it. Many retail battery display racks are metal, seemingly a more likely conductor than concrete. Anybody know the physics that may support the 'conventional wisdom'. Ray
old wives tale. we've had this discussion here, before. (there is a little bit of fact behind it, if you place a battery on a really cold floor, it will cool down, and have less umph. same reason folks used to take their battery inside in winter in the olden days)
I had to buy a battery for my OT car made by the Bring My Wallet outfit in Germany. It was original to the car,'02, dated coded late '01. This was last fall. '01-''15. I've never have had a battery last half as long.
Several years ago I new a person that had a 1962 T Bird. In about 1965 he bought a battery that had a life time warranty. He still had the car. So he has been getting new batterys. I have not see him for over 15 years. So dont know if he is still getting batterys.
Way back in the day, there was some truth to the batteries and concrete floors thing. When batteries were still being built with hard rubber cases, carbon black was used as the coloring to get black cases. Carbon is conductive, so even though it was mixed with rubber, the cases weren't perfect insulators. So put in contact with concrete (or on just earth), the battery is exposed to both grounding, and maybe more importantly, eddy currents from earth's magnetic field. These eddy currents, while at low potentials relative to made-made items, can be in the millions of amps. And even a tiny drain can, over enough time, run a battery flat. Once plastic cases came on the scene, this issue pretty much disappeared.
For their brand of batteries, it probably is true. I know when I worked for Standard Oil in the 70s that dry battery weight (all batteries were keep dry until sale) was considerably different between the various battery 'levels' that we sold. The cheapy 2-year battery weighed about 1/3 less than the premium version due to plate size differences (for the same group number), but once acid was added the weight difference became minor. But there still was a difference.
As I understand it, marine batteries are larger because the plates are farther apart. Reason being that the slamming a boat takes knocks crude off of the plates where it settles to the bottom, connects the plates and shorts them out. Assuming that all that is true, what effect does having the plates farther apart have on charging, power, etc?
Thought I would chime in... I've sold and installed well over 1000 batteries. This was at a local tire and brake chain called Les Schwab if you haven't heard of it it is a large tire and wheel chain out here.. Les schwab batteries were produced by a company called Johnson Controls. They are some of the best batteries I have ever used. What is said above about the plates and shorting out is generally true. And the cost vs longevity is pretty good thing to consider as well as it is generally true also. The 1 thing where a quality more expensive battery excels is that the premature failure rate is much less than the cheap ones. One of the other things that I wanted to say is even the same battery generally can and will have different life spans. I personally use LS batteries exclusively, 1 because I get a discount. But also because I have had multiple last in the 10 year range. The 5 year batteries consistently do 6-8 years. I think for the everyday public, who doesn't even know how to change a battery this is the way to go. For you guys (mechanics) and myself if I had to pay retail on LS batteries. The cheap is fine. We generally can tell when our batteries are getting soft or keep track of how old they are. Sent from my SM-G900T using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Back to begining of buy a catalog. Just get a automatic trickle charger for the money And bam it done. I do agree with never let a batery sit on solid floor without it being on a piece of Wood or rubber mat or something. I even have a piece of rubber under my bat in my truck. Ive had the battery since 2008 and it does fine to this day i have a yellow top duralast.
My friends and I have had good luck with the new type battery minder / maintainer things on all types of batteries . These are supposed to "condition" the battery also as far as far as d-sulfacation . I use the Battery Minder Plus brand ones that I bought at Northern Tool on sale. Can't bring myself to try the Harbor Freight ones
Best batteries I have ever seen are Stock Motorcraft. My family dailies 2000 Ranger and 01 F250. Both lasted between 11 and 13 years. Ranger went over 225K on the original battery. I think one of the trick to it is the heater wraps Ford put on them that is tied into the block heater. My ranger was plugged in whenever it was cold for the 282K that I had it. Looking to add one to the 51 GMC that is replacing it as a DD.
[QUOTE) Jimmy bar, some wrenches, and a black ski mask $49.99??? whos the thief here[/QUOTE] Its like a buddy of mine was reading an ad once that stated to send in a $10.00 payment, which included shipping and handling and they would send to him a device and the secrets for increasing the size of his penis by 50% instantly. Curiosity killed the cat, so he sent them the money. About ten days later a box arrived in the mail. With anxious anticipation he opened the box and they had sent him a magnifying glass.
Its like a buddy of mine was reading an ad once that stated to send in a $10.00 payment, which included shipping and handling and they would send to him a device and the secrets for increasing the size of his penis by 50% instantly. Curiosity killed the cat, so he sent them the money. About ten days later a box arrived in the mail. With anxious anticipation he opened the box and they had sent him a magnifying glass.[/QUOTE] LOL, that's funny
You don't need that foundation or to try and swindle anyone with false promises. Just start a go fund me page.
Smoke and mirrors? Or is that only if you are working on an English car with a Lucas system? (Don't let the smoke out!)
What he said, my last Ranger battery lasted over 12 years of DD, died on the Monday after I retired. Guessing it too was done with the daily grind.
LOL that earthquake in Chile a couple of years back moved it 7 degrees according to the really smart astrophysicists. @31Vicky with a hemi never had a problem with a car but I did build a build a bike for a guy once that could be parked in two counties at once.
I've done that more than a few times myself. The shop I worked for sold batteries, so we always had a pile of old batteries sitting on a pallet or 2. I would sort through them and pull out the ones that looked the best, the right size, posts in the right place, and turn them upside down for a few days and let them drain, then refill with fresh acid and put them on a slow charge. Many of them worked just fine for a long time, and when they quit I'd do it again.
never drive your car is one way to never need another battery - had a distant relative that years ago made money by placing an ad in newspapers "How to Become a Millionaire" - just send self addressed envelope & $1 - she mailed back info on placing similar ads in newspapers in your area - Feds stopped her ads later
I got a Lucas electrical system on one of my cars.....it works great, ....as long as I don't get too confident in thinking I've got it all fixed....but, it does work great in between constant fixes
Back in the '70s Lucas decided to diversify its product line and began manufacturing vacuum cleaners. It was the only product they offered which didn't suck!
Stop and think about it; if that worked you would have a perpetual motion machine, an energy creator. Go to the junk yard and get all the $5 junk batteries you can and you would eventually own virtually the entire energy source in the world. Sad fact is batteries work on a one-way chemical reaction once the reaction is complete, the battery is useless. Some battery designs can be recharged but it takes more energy to recharge them than they can yield back. However is anyone interested in the carburetor I just designed that runs on tap water and gets 150mpg on the water?
Back in the 60's Checker Auto used to sell a "lifetime battery". No pro-rate, no time limit. But it applied to only the original buyer and the same car. Their strategy, I guess, was that people lose receipts and sell cars often enough that the warranty requirements wouldn't kill them....They didn't know my old man when they made up that policy. He kept his cars for decades and never lost a receipt in his life..LOL!! A battery's life expectancy here in Arizona used to be about every 2 years. The Checker battery he bought in '69 sold for around $14. Some time in the early 80's he brought in the latest victim of the heat for another free exchange and they told him they'd exchange that one for free but they had changed their policy and from then on they'd be pro-rated. The old man showed the manager his over 10 year old receipt, the free warranty exchange certificate and his current registration to the car and let him know it was a legal and binding contract. That original battery purchase was exchanged, no charge, probably 9 or 10 times over the next 20 or so years with the old man, receipt and registration in hand, ready for the same argument each time. It got to be a game with him...LOL!!
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