Battery life

[lowdrag]

I was only thinking the other day about this. Of the three cars here, the youngest battery is eight years old and going fine. That's in the E-type. The XKSS has a Red Top dry cell one that was in it when I bought the car 10 years back and shows no sign of failing, and the Mercedes is coming up to 13 years old and still on the original. Am I just lucky or have some of you had even better experiences? The two classics are disconnected and kept on charge all winter, but the Merc is the everyday car, and I though it would have died years back.

[Ozzie Osmond]

lowdrag said:

The two classics are disconnected and kept on charge all winter, but the Merc is the everyday car.

There's your answer.

Lead-acid batteries like to be kept in a full state of charge. The system's strengths are instantaneous high current delivery for a short period. They don't like being drained and charged and drained and charged.

A good quality car battery is capable of lasting a long time if it's not allowed to drain.