OEM Battery - Anyone add distilled water??

Interstate Reference: (http://batteries-faq.com/activekb/questions.php?questionid=6) recommends checking/adding water.

This is the first battery where the electrolyte seemed to be getting low [ or perhaps not filled completely to begin with.] But I've read where hot/dry climes encourage evaporation. ref: http://giantbatteryco.com/GLOSSARY/Battery.Water.Levels-Industrial.Batteries.html Probably best in the S/SE USA that batteries are checked monthly. The rest of us will probably get away without checking at all...

For my part at 60 to 72 months I replace. Pushing to get the last ten bucks life out of one is probably not a good investment, not the least of which, even if the battery is allowing successful starts, it might not be readily taking a full charge, with the charging system overworking to try anyway.

 

It's hot here. This is the desert, and batteries evaporate. It's a fact of life and the maintenance free batteries evaporate too.

My dealer was trying to sell me a battery, claiming mine was getting weak, after just 3 years.

I checked the water, it was low & I added some.

That battery lasted 7 years, or about 4 years longer than the dealer was willing to let me keep it & they wanted $130 for a new one.

A bottle of distilled water cost me a buck.

 

Not sure about the AGM's....put an Optima in my FJ40 in Moab when I had a dead lead acid one......3 years and the third dead optima later I went back to the Lead Acid old school stuff. Won an Odyssey at Rubithon a year ago....ordered one to fit the Taco......it lived about 6 months (though they did send me a replacement no charge so their customer service is great)...not sure if the Optima is going back in the Taco or not, may put it in the Tundra which gets driven on a more regular basis. Anyone know if you can "shock charge" an AGM style battery or other idea to bring it back to life? The original Odyssey is sitting in my garage, goes pretty dead with a very minimal load in about a week (as in whatever the Taco pulls with everything turned off...not sure what that draw is, but it does have the blinking alarm light and such so it does draw something).

 

I tried to shock charge a couple of those batteries as well. No go.

IM back to plain, old lead acid batteries as well. At least i have a general idea how long they will last around here.

I have been known to cheat when it comes adding water. I just use purified drinking water. Having a background in water chemistry allowed me test the difference between bottled water and distilled water. The differences were almost non detectable testing the Aquafina brand.

 

$7 cheaper than at my area Costco and an additional 6 months on the warranty. You did well.

 

I have a Rain-Soft system with reverse osmosis filter for drinking water, and I use that water in batteries as well & have been for 20 years. I change the filters regularly and it makes water very close to distilled water from the taste. (flat and tasteless) I've never done a chemical test, but a battery usually lasts me 7 years so it must be OK.

 

I have to run a dehumidifier in our basement due to in-ground moisture.. this is my distilled water for batteries. I don't really trust what's sold in the store as distilled.

Looks like the consensus of this thread is that if you're in a hot climate, water will likely leave the sulfuric acid/water solution in the battery, and needs to be replaced (the acid itself doesn't evaporate). Dealer won't necessarily check it and it's not in the maintenance requirements.

Thanks to all for the the good replies/discussions.

 

FYI my almost 2 year old OEM battery was about 3/8ths of an inch below the bottom of the plastic opening tube. I filled it up to the bottom of the tub (just a little bit per cell) and sealed her back up. Wont hurt anything, and if it makes the battery last longer, awesome.

And i already have a half used gallon of distilled from a coolant change on a motorcycle.

 

This brings up another point. Use, heat & humidity increase the electro-chemical activity of dried fumes on the outside of the battery case, increasing draw on the battery when the car is off.

It literally creates a semi-conductive surface between the + & - terminals. When I took the cables off my somewhat dirty battery & checked it, I got 0.019 volts drop, then cleaned the case & hold downs & tray & I got only 0.010 drop.

This is without cleaning the terminals or cables or bolts. Just the plastic parts.

Here it's very very dry and the change is small (well, small but significant, as it changed nearly 100% when it got dirty, which means 100% additional drain) but when it's wet, the drain can increase. Here in the desert, the water inside does evaporate through the vent tube. You will have the opposite situation in high humidity, in addition to increased corrosion. I could make a battery last 7 years in Minnesota too, but it took a lot more maintenance (as did nearly everything.)

Also, sealed batteries with glass mats tend to make their own vent if you get them hot enough! I pulled cracked ones out of computer power backups regularly. They have an air pocket inside that's supposed to be big enough to allow for the production and recombination of gasses inside, without amy vent. As the case gets old and hot, it weakens, and then that space becomes insufficient. Internal pressure splits the case and then the moisture evaporates from the mat and it slowly dies.

I wonder if this is what's killing the Optimas?