Hi all,

Sorry for a long intro and a history to my battery issues.

I've got a 2001 C4 Cab (3.4l version) of which I've owned it for about 7 years. Being in Japan, my driving patterns are very light - I do approx 5000km (3100 miles) or less a year and is effectively a weekend car for grocery or household shopping.

In the past the Porsche dealer has always changed my batteries with Bosch at approx USD$350-$400/pop (that's standard price for a Bosch) and was told the average battery life is 3 yrs. Although I may have owned this Porsche for 7 yrs, I do feel that it's some what too pricey for a battery, and 3 yrs is a little too short for a battery life (at least when compared to some non-Porsche cars I've owned the past).

2 yrs ago I purchased a 3rd party battery for approx 1/2 the cost of aforementioned price above. It seems more particularly this year, if I don't drive my car for a week, it drains and I'll have to recharge it (and as such I've been doing this quite regularly). Admittedly my driving patterns doesn't help when I cover such little mileage per week doesn't help.

Finally to my question :-
1) Is 3 years the average life of a battery? I thought these things could last for 5-7 yrs.
2) Is 1 week for a battery drain normal if I don't drive it often/long enough (say approx 30 min - 1 hr a week).
3) How can I detect that I'm not having some kind of battery drain issue instead (e.g. some other circuitry that's trickle draining the battery)?

I'm aware of battery reconditioners or trickle chargers, etc. unfortunately my car is in a public/shared garage and there's no power source near by. I have to remove and re-charge my battery in my apt.

Any advice/assistance is appreciated.

 

Sorry, but I don't have specific recommendations for your car other than to drive it more often or longer. I just bought a Bosch battery for my wife's 6 cylinder Saturn. It has a full replacement guarantee for 3 years and a pro-rated replacement for 9 years. Here it costs about $120. Non-use is very bad for a battery and shortens it's lifespan.

You said that you use the car for grocery and household shopping. When you do drive the car it may be too short a time to fully recharge the battery to make up for the amount you used starting it up. Especially if you are making several stops and not one continuous trip.

I have a boat that sees about as much use as your car. I only get 2 or 3 years out of a battery.

Do you know what guarantee the Bosch battery came with? You may be better off with the more expensive battery if the guarantee is better than the cheaper battery.

 

I have an interstate battery and its been very good going on 7 years now...they have a 85 month warranty. I noticed that about 2 months ago when starting it would crank and pause and then start. So i drove the car more often for a week and then now it had no problem. I drive about 2 times a week just on sat and sunday, for about 30mins to an hour each time, depending on traffic.

 

Thanks for the responses. Good to know that I'm not having a battery drain issue and just more to do with my driving style/use.

I'm surprised that you guys are getting multi-year warranty with your batteries (and not to mention cheaper price). I'm assuming I don't get that with my dealer in Japan, or maybe I'll need to ask him. Thinking about it, my Bosch battery lasted less than 3 yrs 'cos in the 7 yrs I've owned the car, I've changed my battery 3 times (2xBosch, and 1x3rd party). The dealer told me that 3 yrs is about the average life of the Bosch.

As with wyovino, I do agree that if I get the kind of warranty and longevity that you guys are seeing, I don't mind shelling out that $350-$400 but unfortunately I don't.

Cheers, this information is very useful for me. Thank you.

 

The interstate one was about 300

 

Hi all,

Sorry, I'm re-bumping this thread. This is becoming to be a little painful. Previous weekend I gave my car a good drive for about 2 hrs (thereby giving a good recharge). On Friday morning I was supposed to pick a friend up to the airport. Before picking him up, I stopped by the convenience store - both places a short distance from each other and from my home.

As he wasn't ready I was just sitting in my car listening to my Alpine for about 10-15 mins, think the headlights were on too. When he got, I couldn't start my car. It made the usual clicks, and the power windows were going up and down (a little, not the whole way), and the interior lights were flashing. In the end we had to push the car into his car park and swap cars.

I'm pretty sure my car had a good charge from the weekend before and even during the week I one or two short drives. I'd like to think it's the car stereo's the culprit but I've had my car batteries (yes, not just the current one) go flat so quickly even when I was doing other things (like changing the rear lights to LED, and testing - that was probably about 30-45 mins of having the car lights on and off without starting the engine).

Sorry if this is a noob question but I doubt car batteries drain that quickly whether it's headlights, interior lights, car stereo, etc. which leads to the original question of whether there is a systematic way of testing if any electrical components are draining the battery faster than usual?

My current battery is 2 yrs old, and previous had lasted me approx 3 yrs only. Also I had my alternator changed 11 months ago.

 

Can you use a battery tender? Porsche has a good one that keeps the battery charged when the car is not in use in the garage and also prolongs the battery life...

 

It could be that the battery is compromised or it could be "Vampire Electronics" consuming electricity while the car is idle. You can try repeating your 2 hour drive, then leaving your radio and headlights on for 15 minutes like before, but without the week in between. If you have problems starting it, it's most likely the battery. If you don't, it's probably some component (maybe the radio) draining power in the background.

 

Thx for the advice guys.

adammich, a battery tender doesn't work as unfortunately my car is parked in an apt building garage in the open, and I don't have access to a power source nearby. Also that seems to work around the problem rather than tackle it at the source.

wyovino, that's a fair test. I'm wondering if I should start unplugging out fuses & other misc electrical components as a process of elimination. As in the original post I've had 3 batteries in 8 yrs. During that time I've had a smartTop installed, changed to an Alpine navigation/audio, and in the past year switched over to LED where possible (tail lights, interior). My alternator also died and Porsche replaced it with a refurbished one (11 months old).

I highly doubt it's got anything to do the LED lights but am leaning towards to one of the other 3 (the Alpine approx 4-5 yrs old, smartTop 7 yrs old, or got a dodgy refurbished alternator).

 

Anakchan,

I have a MY99 C2 and I experienced a similiar experience recently with my battery draining. The battery in my car was 3 yrs olds and just died one me 1 day. I charged it and it died again, so I purchased a new battery. After, a couple days of not driving the new battery died also, so I put it on a battery tender until I was able to take the car to a auto electronics ship to troubleshoot the problem. The 1st shop I took it to told me that there was a parasitic drain somewhere in my system, but they couldn't pinpoint where. The 2nd shop I took it to also confirmed there was a parasitic drain and was able to somewhat narrow it down to the heater/ac blower circuit which a large drain and a smaller drain from the windshield wiper circuit. The shop wasn't able to pin point exactly where in these circuits the drain was coming from, and I need to take the car back to the shop when they are less busy and can spend more time looking for the drain. In the meantime the tech told me as long as I leave the 2 fuses out that are associated with these circuits, then I won't have a drain. So, basically, that's what I've been doing, leave the fuses out, and when I need them for example the heater, I put the fuse back in. By the way the fuses were C6 and C7 in the fuse box.

Okay, after all of this I explained to my Porsche mechanic what was going on with the electronics, and his comment was that he never heard of a parasitic drain on the windshield wiper circuit, but, it is fairly common that the climate control unit tends to go bad, and he's replaced quite a few of them himself, and that's the one area he would look for the parasitic drain.

My suggestion would be to find a auto electronics shop and have them look to see if where your problem (drain) is coming from. Or if you handy and have a multimeter you could check yourself. Sorry, I don't know the specifics myself, but I'm sure you can find the procedure on the internet.

 

Daiji,

This is excellent information! At least it gives me a start and that I'm not going mad. Yes I do have a multimeter, just not certain on how to probe sequentially on various electrical components to see where the fault is. But your experience has given me a start at least.

Thank you very much!! I'm gonna have to print this out and show it to my local Porsche dealer.

 

If I'n not mistaken you make the reading at the battery/battery cables. Don't know the specifics buy you connect the meter to the battery/battery cables, where you will see the drain on the meter, then you have someone help you by pulling out each fuse in the fuse box, and when you see the drain goe away on the meter, you have found the circuit with the drain.

Be careful to use the correct setting on the meter before you connect it to the battery or battery cables, as I have read that you could blow a fuse in the meter.

Sorry, I can't be more helpful, but I'm not really good with electrical problems, just start reading about it on the internet, as I encountered my own drain problems.