2018 Tacoma battery life

So a friend of mine is the Service Director of a Toyota dealership and he confirmed my thinking. Toyota used Interstate Batteries
(gold star label) I believe and they sell/replace with same interstate batteries so with that said they are good batteries. So why did my wife’s 2018 Camry at 27k miles need to be replaced? Also my 2018 tacoma 30k miles, co worker 18’ Tacoma 36k miles and friends 18’ tacoma 15k also all need replaced? Funny enough all of us needed replacement within a couple of months of each other. Common denominator? All 2018. All 36k miles or less. All in Southern California. So what is the problem? Heat, heat more heat and average 289 sunny days a year. We don’t know how many weeks/months those Toyota’s sat not being started baking in the sun for weeks or months on end and shorten the batteries life. Just like a phone battery exposed to excessive heat. It weakens battery health over time. So when we purchased our vehicles our battery life could be “good” instead of excellent. Granted all 4 batteries where replaced under warranty 36k or 3 years. But it does say something about letting batteries sit not charged in extreme heat or cold for prolonged periods.

 

Heat kills them but mine lasted 2 years 10 months, and it was 15 below when it shitted out, they seem to puke around 3 years

Theres a few threads already on this.
and wow we have the same post count... 431

 

My theory is that newer cars have more equipment powered when the cars is off putting a strain on the batt. And with new transmissions making RPMs about half that of older cars the batt doesn’t get as strong a charge on shorter drives. Just brainstorming...

 

Batteries don’t last as long in newer cars because the alternator output voltage is varied by a control unit to increase fuel economy.
This causes the batteries to be slightly undercharged all the time which shortens life

I see this all the time at work across many different manufactures

 

I also Changed it to a AGM battery from sams club AND i was able to get toyota to pay me for it ... win, win


also
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/how-long-should-an-oem-battery-last.602412/page-4#post-20564908

 

I've never had an OEM Toyota battery last over 1.5 years

My 19 just died, swapped it with an AGM. Already had it in the car cuz I had the feeling it was ready to give up

 

Still running stock battery in my 2016. Even run exterior lighting and stereo. I think being garaged instead of parking outside makes a difference...who knows

 

If a car/truck has sat on the lot, it generally gets low cycled, highly shortening its life.

 

My 18 tacoma battery started to leak acid at 5k miles and it was the one from the factory. I thought it was just the battery sweating but it got worse. I did end up getting a new one for free.

 

yall making me scared LOL....

 

If you think about how many batteries are out there that are just fine or far exceed the expected battery life I doubt this is a thing. There may be a bad batch cranked out once in a while but I would guess most batteries exceed their warranty service life.

 

Me to ... and i live in Ohio where we have 90's in summer and zero degree temps in winter, have had truck since April 2016
... now i probably just jinxed myself, it will take a shit this winter

 

Don't be scared, AGM is your friend.

 

A battery minder will wring every last amp out of any battery. Sulphating is the #1 killler of these flooded batteries. Builds up on the plates and acts as a passive layer. The battery minder pushes DC current but at a high frequency which breaks up the layer and drives the sulpher back into the acid solution.
I got 6 years out of my last “5” year battery.

$92 BatteryMINDer 2012: 12 Volt-2 Amp Battery Charger, Battery Maintainer, and Battery Desulfator - Designed for Cars, Trucks, Motorcycles, ATV, Boats, RV

https://www.amazon.com/BatteryMINDe...qid=1569562434&sprefix=battery+minder+&sr=8-3

 

I'm in Arizona and 19 months into ownership of my 2018 with 20k miles. It was only driven on weekends when I go out of town until about a month ago after I sold my daily. It's always in the garage when I'm not driving it. Will be interesting to see how long the battery last.

 

Correction from a 10 year Interstate rep: Toyota uses batteries made to their specifications by Johnson Controls, not "Interstate". Interstate does indeed provide OEM replacement batteries again, made by Johnson Controls to Toyota dealers with batteries made to Toyota's specifications. For clarification, Johnson Controls also makes batteries for Interstate but to Interstate specifications.
If you want/need to replace an OEM battery with an upgrade, buy a brand name such as Interstate, Northstar, Odyssey, etc. be it wet cell or AGM.
Furthermore, you are 100% correct in that no wet cell battery ever does well simply sitting in either heat or cold.
Hope this helps.

 

GM is suing Johnson Controls because of this same issue.

 

All of todays Batteries are only good for 3-5 years, due to the electronics in todays vehicles.

 

I will be interested to see what life I get out of the battery in my 2019 Tacoma SR5.
I had the truck 6 weeks when I hit the deer causing front end damage. The battery was replaced with oem Toyota at time of repair.
We have had a 2013 Chrysler T& C that is going on 6.5 years with the original battery.
I had a 2007 F-150 with 5.4L and got 7 years out of the original motorcraft battery.

 

I had my 2013 battery in the truck till 2018 when I totaled it..