OEM Battery life...not good.

Seems strange they would tell you not to expect much more than 2 years out of the battery Toyota installs in their vehicles. A battery that matches power requirements specified by the vehicle's manufacturer, installed in a vehicle with a good charging/starting system and used/stored in a moderate climate (batteries will not last as long in HOT <especially> or cold climate) should last 5-6 years.

Good idea to start looking to replace at 5 years old.

I base this opinion on my owning/operating a chain of auto parts stores over 16 years and buying/selling/warranting literally thousands of batteries over the years.

 

The alternator doesn't really use a high enough voltage to perform an "equalizing" charge on a wet cell either; as long as you use a modern battery charger once every few months an AGM battery should last for its design life.

 

Take a look at the link for the Toyota battery prorated warranty. They obviously ran the numbers and know it will last 2 years and little if ever beyond that.

https://www.donvalleynorthtoyota.com/replacement-batteries-warranty/

 

Mine just died over the weekend. No warning. It's almost 4 years old and I got about 50k on the truck, so that seems reasonable to me. A little shittier than I'd like, but not exactly unexpected. Batteries die, tires wear out.

 

There's enough data to know the OEM are trash. Even on this forum alone.

 

Not so obvious and actually not the case but I've only bought, sold, warranted probably 150,000 car/truck/equipment batteries in my lifetime, visited most of the battery manufacturing facilities in the US, but what do I know.
I'm sure you know more about the subject than I do.

 

Alright then.

 

Oh and you might want to share your wealth of knowledge with Toyota.

Seems they're clearly saying 2-3 years here for half the US, and they disagree with your 5-6 year assessment for damn near everywhere.

https://parts.toyota.com/go/Genuine-Toyota-Car-Batteries.html

 

Additionally, it literally take less than 5 minutes to test a battery to determine whether it's good, just de-charged or bad. If they did a 3 hour testing process it was for a complete check of your electrical system (3 hours even seems long for that) and they would not have or should not have invested that time/expense if your battery had simply tested bad. Seems there's more to this story.

 

Like what? I didn't feel like spending the day in my office so I spent it in the dealership?

Truck is less than two years old, truck didn't start, battery took a shit. End of story.

The service advisor said they had to attempt to charge the battery for X amount of time and record the numbers to have it meet the warranty restrictions.

 

I don't see how you are determining that. According to the Johnson Controls diagram above, I see they are showing less than 25% of the US (Red area) gets 2-3 years out of their batteries.

You must have missed where I stated in my initial post "batteries will not last as long in HOT <especially> or cold climates".

By the way, you know Toyota doesn't make batteries, right? There's only about a 1/2 dozen battery manufacturers who manufacturer batteries. Johnson controls is one of the largest, with Exide, Deka and a few others.

 

Well good luck to you. I hope the new battery cures your problem and you get more service out of this one.

 

If not daily use, then a battery tender will extend battery life

 

So, mine died. I bought a Group 35 Yellowtop battery. It said at the Advanced Auto Parts site that it was an exact fit for my Taco, and it seems to be working just fine. But it looks...kind of small. I assume Group 35s are OK in Gen 3 Tacos?

 

"Need the strongest burst of ignition?" - https://bit.ly/2z0LWhz

"Deep-cycle or lots of accessories?" - https://bit.ly/2Cr63HT



Ed

 

Well, I guess you sort of answered my question too. I guess Group 35 is fine. Thanks!

 

Out of curiosity, did you (or did they) check to see if any of the cells were low on water?

I check my OEM battery at least weekly, and in the last 2 months since I've owned the truck, I've found 2 cells that were low, so I added distilled water with a battery "pitcher" (that stops automatically when the cell is full).

Ed

 

Mine died right @ 2 years as well.

 

Heat kills batteries not cold. It just takes more cranking amps to start something cold. The over heated over charged battery can't deliver it.

 

Funny, same thing happened to me this weekend!

I bought my Tacoma new in May 2017, battery had a date of April 2017. Friday night truck struggled slightly to start. Thought it sounded odd but then told myself I'm just overthinking it. Saturday afternoon went to start and only had the clicking from the starter going. Checked water level (which was fine) jumped it, and drove 30 minutes to attempt to charge the battery. Decided since I drove so far I should make it worth the trip so I grabbed food. One hour later truck wouldn't start at all, no clicking from the starter either. Had to call Toyota's roadside assistance to get back on the road. Next day I took the Camry and bought a new battery (AGM of course). Got ahold of Toyota's warranty people and they're in the process of reimbursing me at this moment in time.