I thought the last couple mornings my CC has been cranking over a little slow. Pretty sure it’s the original battery from 2012 so I swung over to Advance Auto with a $50 gift card from Xmas burning a hole in my pocket. Figured I’d have them test it to be sure but expected to leave with a battery. They run their tests, car off, car on, with load, rev to 3k etc etc and when it’s done they tell me it just needs a trickle charge??? I’m like, this is my daily driver that goes to Ellicottville at least once a week so if the battery isn’t charged and you just told me my alternator was working fine doesn’t that mean the battery is bad? The manager says no, sometimes they just need to be topped off with a charger and then they’ll be fine. I’ve never heard of that for a battery in a vehicle that gets used every day. So now it’s sitting on my trickle charger and I’m supposed to go back tomorrow to have it tested again.
What would you guys do? I’m pretty sure regardless of what my freshly charged battery reads I’m going to tell them to just sell me a battery. I don’t give a shit about the money, I just want to know my car is going to start every time.
Ive had load testers say charge battery and test again. By time to load the battery starting the car a few times it will be right back where its at. I’d just replace the battery. Unless you have a real place load test that battery with a print out.
I just had to replace my battery on the GTI too, it was struggling to crank over and the first day we had a sub 20 morning it flat out wouldn’t start. Definitely get the battery.
BTW, I replaced the porsche battery with an AGM battery from Advanced Auto also, it had pretty much the best specs of any I could find out there for the money.
Batteries may test marginal and crank slow due to reduced capacity because of sulfated plates (results from normal use and leaving the battery even partially discharged) and or low electrolyte levels (trickle chargers and overcharging) and leaving them on a trickle charger won’t help. Using battery desulfators can actually work in my actual experience but it is often hit and miss; some can take weeks to months to restore, some never bounce back. Batteries with shorted cells are 100% junk. When in doubt, replace it. I’ve had consistent results with interstate batteries (Johnson controls) and Deka AGM batteries.