Due to the Coronavirus the company I work for has experienced a downturn in business, causing us to be furloughed. We're working part time. I can't afford to have 2 vehicles on the road now (thankfully have a company van) so I had to temporarily take my '99 Accord off of the road for now, and put my truck back on. I have a wood stove, need the truck to obtain firewood.

I haven't started my Honda in a week and it's been in the single digits overnight. This morning it took about 3 seconds longer than usual but started fine. I hear of these newer vehicles with batteries going dead because of electronics still being online when they're not running - even after a few days. AAA will report a big service call demand for many vehicles after one night of very cold temperatures. IMO these old Hondas are great cars especially given their age. Very much looking forward to driving mine again.

 

I would say that, if possible, put a trickle charger on it if you can if it's going to sit. The car will drain absolutely, and older batteries particularly will not hold a strong charge in this colder weather if left sitting. It's not surprising, however, the starting takes a little longer, mine is driven every day (a 99 like yours) and it also took about 3 seconds to start in about 15 degrees of weather. I am sad that my wiper fluid froze, the stuff I bought said it was good down to zero, but that's obviously a marketing "zero"

At least it drives fine and has good all seasons so it drives in the snow just fine.

 

Good idea re: the trickle charger. I've been lucky - really didn't think it would start after this last week. I don't even know how old the battery is, need to check. The battery in my truck went dead because up until the end of last year that was off the road since the end April. I'd run it occasionally. Got lucky with that, my neighbor gave me a battery out of his GMC box truck that he retired. He replaces the battery as a precaution after 5 years. The one he gave me was 9. something volts originally, it seems fine now after installing in the truck a few months ago.

Sounds like you may be in a similar climate as mine. I saw a battery chart indicating the average useful time based on geography. Surprisingly the northeast and northern part of the U.S. is rated the longest, I think 4-5 years, while down south the least. I guess heat really does a battery in. In Canada, slightly less than the northern U.S. I'd be concerned if the Honda battery went dead, I found some numbers in the owner's manual that may be the code for the radio, but not sure if that's what they're for.

 

yes, totally. I think either extreme does the poor things in. In the south, the heat simply bakes them to death, and the north simply makes it difficult for a battery to maintain a charge unless running often. I often buy the battery with the longest warranty, and tend to get about 4-5 years uot of it as you said. I have been lucky in a few cases, my OEM BMW battery lasted 8 years, and another one last 12 years (which I thought was insanely amazing), but I've had several that baked and were done within 3 years. I think it also depends if you keep the car in the garage along with the temp extremes, since it can stay at a more stable temp. I use trickle charger on all the cars that will sit more than a week, as it seems to help them as well in the long term. And they are cheap, like $25 for a charger, and they last about 5 years themselves.

Since I tend to throw out the OEM radios, I never think about the code, but that's true you might want to know where that is. On our older cars, I like the newer radios since I can get bluetooth, carplay, hands-free, and reverse camera hookups all for about $100 (Kenwood, Sony, etc) and they are easy to pop in and give me all the features the newer cars have that I care about.

 

Maybe they meant 0 Celsius instead of 0 Fahrenheit.

 

12 years! That is insanely amazing for a car battery! And yes, I wouldn't be all that distraught if I couldn't get the OEM radio going again. I was using an FM transmitter with Bluetooth and a mini SD slot. Convenient but of course the audio quality isn't great.

 

Today was 3 degrees out, took two tries again, but started right up (but certainly complained like an old man getting out of bed in the morning, creaks and groans from inside the dash for the first 2-3 minutes while it warmed up). But at least it's working.

 

Wow - close to zero is very cold. Good it started, ironically some newer cars in your neck of the woods may not have.