Battery took a dump on me.

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corneileous

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Had to replace my battery today. Well, I’m hoping it was a battery and I’m hoping that’s all it was but when I went to start my truck this afternoon when I got back to the yard, the remote start wouldn’t work. Wasn’t sure why so I opened the door to start it manually and the flippin’ battery was dead, wouldn’t crank. Had about enough juice to power everything but no crank.

Checked the battery cables and sure enough, they were tight; should be tight because it’s the factory battery and Ive never taken the cables off. Had my buddy come over with his pickup to give me a jump and sure enough, it was dead because it took a little over 5 minutes to charge it enough to where it would even crank but even after it got to that point, it wouldn’t start, it would just crank, and crank. I guess the voltage has to be high enough in order for the fuel pump or whatever to kick on because after about another 3, 4 minutes of jumping, it finally fired up.

Drove it down to Oreileys, they put their battery checker on it but they couldn’t check it because the battery was hardly charged and sure enough when I went to start it back up, it wouldn’t crank. They had to get their portable jump starter out to start the truck. They said they could check the battery once it was charged so I drove it home, took the battery out and went back so they could charge it. Said it would take about an hour to charge it and then they said they could properly test it to see if it really was bad.

Well, they hooked up the charger and after a few seconds of the charger running it’s thing, it immediately said the battery was bad so I figured at that point, I might as well just replace the damn thing. 200 bucks for a new battery later, put it in and she cranked right up.

I’m just curious though, is it possible my battery just decided to take a crap like that outta the blue? I don’t think anything was left on because I found out right away that if you leave any lights on, including the headlights, it will shut them off as a protection.

This truck will be four years old this Christmas and I haven’t had a single problem out of the battery and yes, my truck does sit a lot, especially when I’m at work. It’s not out of the ordinary for my truck to sit at the yard all week and then I drive it home on the weekends. As I said, it’s been subject to this a lot since I bought it brand new and nothing….except for today and it was dead.

Usually if something drains a battery, you might get by with jumping it once but in my experience, if you have to jump one several times, you might as well just replace it at that point as it’s usually shot but not this time. This is the first time it went dead and that was all she wrote. Sorry for the long post but any ideas? I do have an amp powering my rear subs but it shuts off when there’s no audio signal coming from the radio so I find it hard to believe it’s that. Other than that, I don’t leave phone chargers plugged it so I have no idea where the parasitic draw would have come from if there was any. I’m stumped unless this battery just decided it didn’t want to hold a charge anymore.
 

crash68

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Your battery just up and dying like that isn't an uncommon occurrence. Newer vehicles don't help the matter as they'll not start if the voltage drops too much.
You got 4 year out of the battery, if you check the manufacturer date code it's probably closer to 5.
I'd check the running charging voltage, make sure it's 13.8V-14.4V, if not the IBS might be acting up
 

Elvira

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Sadly yes, batteries will give up sometimes with no indication or odd behaviour before hand. I just recently replaced mine, although it was still starting okay, it was due. Rule of thumb i always go by, 5 yrs, it is time to replace. Saves you a lot of heart ache to keep the electrical side of your truck working optimum all the time. Not a cheap item to replace, but a small price to pay to never be let down at the worse time. I did an AGM battery too, being retired and I dont drive the truck often...thought it would be a good replacement.
 
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corneileous

corneileous

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Your battery just up and dying like that isn't an uncommon occurrence. Newer vehicles don't help the matter as they'll not start if the voltage drops too much.
You got 4 year out of the battery, if you check the manufacturer date code it's probably closer to 5.
I'd check the running charging voltage, make sure it's 13.8V-14.4V, if not the IBS might be acting up
I’m sure glad to hear that. Well, I’m not, but then again, who knows how long that battery sat before it was used. The truck was manufactured 4 years ago this month.

I’ll check the running charge tomorrow with my volt meter but what is the IBS? Is that perhaps something maybe I could monitor with my OBD code reader? The one I bought just so happens to read live data of all the sensors and such like my old Diablo Sport Trinity tuner would.
 

2012RAM1500RT

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Sadly yes, batteries will give up sometimes with no indication or odd behaviour before hand. I just recently replaced mine, although it was still starting okay, it was due. Rule of thumb i always go by, 5 yrs, it is time to replace. Saves you a lot of heart ache to keep the electrical side of your truck working optimum all the time. Not a cheap item to replace, but a small price to pay to never be let down at the worse time.
I agree with @Elvira, when any of mine gets 5 years old I replace it. I've had batteries be fine and show nothing wrong and go to start it another time and be gone. Will never be at a good time either! LOL
 

HEMIMANN

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5 years max., 4 years target for conventional flooded wet cell lead-acid. Yeah, these normally show some signs of weakness prior to crapping out, like throwing only the start solenoid but not cranking, or some such unless the alternator and/or voltage regulator are wigging out.

I went with AGM for my 1st replacement, due to the proliferation of electronic gizmos in newer vehicles combined with our cold climate winters, and now intermittent use (recently retired, COVID). I mean, that's why AGM is being put into sporting engines, right? Boats, UTV's, Snowmobiles, Motorcycles, they're most all AGM now. Plus more rugged bouncing around.
 

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Awhile back, the battery in my '15 started acting just a little sluggish on the cranking. I procrastinated for about a week and a half. Then, one day I went to the grocery store, and when I came out, that was all she wrote. No click, no crank.

Luckily, I got a jump, and got her home, and got a fresh battery. Should have done it when I first heard it struggle. That was at about the 4 year mark.

Through the years I have seen some batteries last 7 or 8 years, and seen some only last 1 year. A real crap-shoot.
 
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corneileous

corneileous

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Awhile back, the battery in my '15 started acting just a little sluggish on the cranking. I procrastinated for about a week and a half. Then, one day I went to the grocery store, and when I came out, that was all she wrote. No click, no crank.

Luckily, I got a jump, and got her home, and got a fresh battery. Should have done it when I first heard it struggle. That was at about the 4 year mark.

Through the years I have seen some batteries last 7 or 8 years, and seen some only last 1 year. A real crap-shoot.
The original battery in my 08 was at least 6 years old with nothing wrong and I only changed it outta age before something happened. That musta been a good battery I guess.
 

crash68

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I’ll check the running charge tomorrow with my volt meter but what is the IBS? Is that perhaps something maybe I could monitor with my OBD code reader?
The Intelligent Battery Sensor is right on the negative battery terminal. It feeds information to the ECM about the battery charge, temperature, etc for controlling the charging of the battery.
Not sure if you can read the information or what it would look like.
 

GTyankee

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My 2016 Ram battery gave me a suspicion that something was up, when on a Sunday morning the truck would not remote start.
Normally i would have a standby battery that had been well used, but it was being used in my buddies van.

I was able to start it with the FOB & there is a Firestone Store nearby, that is open on Sundays.
They had a delivery driver out & he stopped at another store & picked up an Interstate Battery & i was back on street & i knew that i would be able make my Monday morning appointment over in Arizona.

By the way, i took the old battery home & put it on a trickle charger for a couple of hours & then attempted to bring it up to usable strength using 10 Amp.

It would lose any built up charge as soon as a load was put on it

I now carry a jump starter, whenever i am going to be leaving the Metro area
 

retired

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My 2020 power wagon’s battery lasted under 1 year and 9000 miles and died. It was replaced under warranty.
 

turkeybird56

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5 years max., 4 years target for conventional flooded wet cell lead-acid. Yeah, these normally show some signs of weakness prior to crapping out, like throwing only the start solenoid but not cranking, or some such unless the alternator and/or voltage regulator are wigging out.

I went with AGM for my 1st replacement, due to the proliferation of electronic gizmos in newer vehicles combined with our cold climate winters, and now intermittent use (recently retired, COVID). I mean, that's why AGM is being put into sporting engines, right? Boats, UTV's, Snowmobiles, Motorcycles, they're most all AGM now. Plus more rugged bouncing around.
DITTO< yup on the AGM. When I replaced my MC battery, I went with AGM.
 

EdGs

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Dodge uses the cheapest crap possible when building trucks to maximize profit. You're lucky it lasted that long.
You bet your a$$ they do, right along with every one else.

A few pennies on every vehicle adds up to a nice big fat bonus for someone, and a bone-in-the-a$$ for us.
 

turkeybird56

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My luck with batteries is always they have show no signs of dying and then they randomly do.
YUP, 1 Minute OK, next Kaboom, sucker dead. Why when I travel I carry a jump starter, both in Truck and MC if I travel far, the old Boy Scout Motto there.

jump box.JPG
 

2012RAM1500RT

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I normally get good service out of the original batteries. I took the battery out of my wife's 2014 Durango cause I don't trust them after 5 years and we go long distances in our vehicles. I put it in my work truck because it stays local most of the time. The battery is now going on 8 years old and still working so far. I do realize I probably just jinks myself! LOL
 

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The batteries in my '05 CTD lasted 5 or 6 years. My '15 gasser 2.5 years, and yesterday I had to put batteries in my '19 CTD at a couple months past 2 years old. Two of my friends with late model 1500s had batteries fail at 2.5 years, as well, so I'd say they have changed vendors, and/or cheapened up.

I went with AGM East-Penn batts, made in USA. They always give me good service.
 
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