L.

Background of car:
1996 Honda Civic, B16A first gen, Mugen chip(all goveners eliminated), Optima yellow top.
Problem:
Went into Sears no more than 30 minutes. When I came back out of the store the car did not have enough juice to start, my volt meter read only 8volts. Then I tried to kick start it and got it started. No sooner it died out again. Nothing was left on (lights, music), car alarm was armed. About 6 months ago I changed the altenator and belt. I also noticed that during idle the car was charging at about 14.5 volts, during acceleration the car would hit 15 volts (my guess the regulator is broken in the altenator).

I came to the conclusion that the battery was no good, so I bought a new Yellow top from sears and installed in the car. The car fired up with out any problem.

Now the real f*@kedup part. I took the battery home and used a volt meter to test the battery. I put the battery on wood, then checked the battery. Volt meter read 8volts, then 7.99, 7.98, 7.96ect. Not to unordinary for a dead battery. So I took the charger, hooked it up and no voltage? So I figured oh well no big deal since I alredy purchased a new battery. So I go to work thinking nothing. Then when I return re-test the battery, because no matter how much you know it's dead or it does not work you gotta check it again , and what f*@ken battery ads 12.8V.

So now if you have any theories, answers, or comments PLEASE let me know.

PHOBIA

thats really odd because when i fired my alt i drove around for about an huo rbefore i even got a battery light.

Del Sol SiR

iTrader: (2)

Have the alternator tested again. Its frre to test @ most auto parts stores.

L.

I'll take it in to test sometime this week, but what do you think about the Optima battey that came back to life. Ever heard of anything like that?

31flavorscivic

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by L. &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'll take it in to test sometime this week, but what do you think about the Optima battey that came back to life. Ever heard of anything like that?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Surface charge? No idea beyond that.

I like your sig BTW. Some kid in our town has that tattooed on his 5th gen coupe.

toolowsol

I work for midtronics (the largest battery tester manufacture) We are currently doing a bunch of studies on AGM batteries such as the optimas, I've got pallets of them laying around. I will tell you this, they RARELY go bad, we have a very hard time finding dead AGM's If that sucker was down to 8v, there is no way it would bounce back up to 12.8v. That is impossable, the highest I would expect it to bounce back would be about 12.3~12.4v. I think you have something else going on or had a bad connection at the terminals. Regardless, I would stick it back in and do some more testing. If the battery discharges itself, it has a shorted (bad) cell. Sometimes these shorts can repair themselfs after a charge, but I've never seen them fix themselfs just sitting there. Also note, when this happens the battery will get very hot near the bad cell. Also, when they 'fix" themselfs, they will usually short out again if left to sit for a while, this is called a soft short. I haven't seen this on AGM batteries very much, it is much more common on lead acid batteries. Very strange. Worse case scenerio, ship that battery to Midtronics, we would love to study it if it is indeed wack. Just make it incare of the engineering department and detail what it is doing.

L.

Hey Jermey thanks for the response, I will try and test this battery again. In the mean time I talked to a few other guys with Optima battries. Most notably my co-worker, he has a Red top. He was saying that his suddenly dies after about a year. The same type of problem, went in to watch a movie but found it was sold out (no more than 10 minutes) he went to start his truck and nothing. He found his Red top dead. He did admitt that no matter what battery had they all did the same thing in his truck, however, the Optima did last the longest.

Also if I do find that my battery is not good do you have an address that I could sent it to? Please let me know.

pro547

A little off topic but my mom jaguar kinda does the same thing. Pretty sure its an alt problem. I can drive it for a litttle and then come back and it doens't start. Then get it jumped startes right up then head home and it works fine. My mom just got a new battery too. I'm almost 100% sure its your alt.

toolowsol

Midtronics, Inc.
7000 Monroe Street
Willowbrook, IL 60527

In care of Nick McMahn


http://www.midtronics.com

L.

Sorry this response took so long, I finally got to work on my car again. I took out the altenator and brought it to the shop, had them check the battery and alt. Like it was stated earlier the battery did drop all voltage when it was retested (so low that it did not even have enough power to power up tester. Then the alt was tested, the shop said it was not broken however, they replaced it because it was still under warrenty and the guy that was helping me did not really want to restock the alt.

Upon re-installing the alt. I also realized that the Autometer Volt meter is a little off. Where the 15 volt mark is, the actual voltage is 14.4V. So far car is running fine and battery light is not on. Hopefully it will last longer than one year.