Engine not starting. battery problem? any suggestion on battery

State-of-Charge, weak or bad cells in wet non-sealed batteries can be easily tested with an hydrometer by measuring the Specific Gravity in each cell. For more information on testing batteries can be found in Section 4 in the Car and Deep Cycle Battery FAQ on www.batteryfaq.org. Leaking electrolyte from side post batteries will require a battery replacement. Electrolyte on the top cover of a top post battery is normally caused from overfilling. For more information on maintaining batteries can be found in Section 3.

 

Wow. Talk about a form post...lol.

Just to give you an answer to your earlier question as to why you are reading 12.5 volts and it clicks, but when you hook up a lump box and it starts, is because when you clamp the jump box to the battery, you are clamping it to the truck cables, which will conduct electricity just fine. If you have a poor connection at either of the battery terminals, then it will not transfer electrical load.

If you have not done this already, remove both battery terminals (Negative first) and clean both the battery posts, and the cable terminals. Then reinstall the terminals (This time Negative gets done LAST) and make sure that they are tight. Retest at that point.

The concern would of course be the electrolyte that you mentioned has "leaked out". Loss of electrolyte is obviously not a good thing.

I don't think you have a bad cell though. While it is not beyond the realm of possibility, when you have a bad cell your volt meter will read a drop of 2.1 volts per bad cell. If that were the case, you should be reading 10.5V if you had a bad cell. Again this is not perfect, but it is a general rule when it comes to 6-cell, 12V batteries.

 

I took it to sears and they did a test on it and it showed that it only providing a current of 250 instead of 750. so they said it was bad. I went ahead and bought a DIe Hard GOld battery for $100. It came with 3 year replacement warranty and 8 years prorated warranty.

thanks again guys. atleast I have learnt a thing or two about batteries from this experience.

 

My stock batrery only lasted 2 1/2 years.,.then my dealer replacement decided to die this past week yet another 2ish years again bad cell...
But I have a sound system and crap connected so I know that causes shorter life

 

I have gone through 5 Toyota batteries including the one that was in the truck when I bought it 06 Taco 7 years ago. The most I have gotten out of their battery is just over two years and the least amount of time is 13 months. I havent paid full price for a battery yet. I know batteries don't last long here in Phoenix Arizona, but 13 months is not good. All of them have been free except one where I only had to pay 1/2 price for it because it was just past the 0-2 year 100% warranty.

 

Mine only last a little over 3 yrs, no abuse, maintained, and my truck is garage kept.

 

Yeah, it is not uncommon to get only 3 years. I have been really lucky overall in that I average 4-5 years on my vehicles. I'm one of the lucky ones. Overall the Sears Gold batteries are pretty good.