Charging weak battery

[Dime]

Well, car won't start.
For the sake of me not damaging anything I thought I'd ask what the procedures for charging the battery with a charger in a ZR-1 are. I assume that ZR-1s are negative-grounded, correct? So, hook red to the positive post on the battery, and hook negative to the frame?

And I assume any 12v charger would be fine?

[VetteMed]

You are correct - connect red to positive terminal, black to a good ground. If the battery is very weak, you should probably charge at around 10A, if that's a setting available to you on the charger. A 2A trickle is more of a maintainer type charge.

[Kevin]

just buy another one with how these cars eat batteries

[VetteMed]

just buy another one with how these cars eat batteries

Very true. Once it's run down dead or very low, it's forever damaged to some degree.

[Dime]

just buy another one with how these cars eat batteries

Alright that was going to be my next question.

What battery would be best? Right now it has a 70-6yr ac/delco.

[VetteMed]

Lots of choices really. Odyssey batteries seem to have a good reputation, probably better than optima overall. You can search the forum for some posts (I think by Hib Halverson) about the Odyssey. Here in FL, the heat kills batteries quickly, so I just plan on replacement every 3-4 years in all of my vehicles. My current battery of choice is Deka (also sold as Napa house brand), but I've also used many of the different labeled Johnson Controls' batteries (Diehard, Autocraft (from Advance auto), Duralast (From Autozone).

[Anniv88]

To be safe and not damage the cars electronics, disconnect the battery Pos. and Neg. Hook the charger to it and put it on the 12 amp setting. Do this when you are going to be home all day so you can monitor the charging progress.
You don't want to over charge the battery and boil it dry, as I have done in the past.
When the charger shows a full charge reconnect the battery and you should be good to go.
Batteries are tougher than you think. My Duralast is 5 years old and goes
dead on me at least once a year because I rarely drive the car. Well, last
week I didn't get my door completely closed. Guess what, no interior lights, no dash lights, no nothing. Nada, zilch, nothing, completely dead.
I disconnected the battery and charged it on the 12 amp setting for 8 hours.
It was about 3/4 charged so I took the car out for the evening. That was
Saturday. Sunday I put the charger on it and it registered a full charge.
I checked it again tonight and still a full charge.
Hope this helps.:cheers:

[Dime]

Lots of choices really. Odyssey batteries seem to have a good reputation, probably better than optima overall. You can search the forum for some posts (I think by Hib Halverson) about the Odyssey. Here in FL, the heat kills batteries quickly, so I just plan on replacement every 3-4 years in all of my vehicles. My current battery of choice is Deka (also sold as Napa house brand), but I've also used many of the different labeled Johnson Controls' batteries (Diehard, Autocraft (from Advance auto), Duralast (From Autozone).

I had heard that Napa batteries were basically re-labeled Dekas; I guess I'll be running by Napa latter today and picking one up.

[VetteMed]

I had heard that Napa batteries were basically re-labeled Dekas; I guess I'll be running by Napa latter today and picking one up.

I've got 2 of them in my duramax, no complaints at all :cheers:

[Daniel_Mc]

To be safe and not damage the cars electronics, disconnect the battery Pos. and Neg. Hook the charger to it and put it on the 12 amp setting. Do this when you are going to be home all day so you can monitor the charging progress. You don't want to over charge the battery and boil it dry, as I have done in the past.
When the charger shows a full charge reconnect the battery and you should be good to go....

Dime he makes some good points I had a charger on the GS since it was hard to start once I only had it on for about 2 hours in the 12 amp setting and luckily was in the shop and it started smoking. Since then I take the extra 5 minutes take the battery out of the Vette and charge it on my work bench. I have lost 2 C4's due to fire and don't plan on doing it again (BTW not the Vettes fault the house burned).

Daniel

[Brad Sewell]

I put an Odyssey in mine recently. Obviously I don't have an opinion on longevity yet, but the AGM batteries have a lot to offer for cars that are not driven often. And I did not have to modify the battery case or the compartment to make it work.

[scottfab]

It's been a while for a battery thread. There's some good stuff in past threads should you want to look.
There's a lot to be considered when choosing a battery but even if you want to just buy the most expensive one you can find at least make sure it has not sat for a long time on a shelf. I don't care what type you get it it's sat for a long time they will suffer from Sulfation
Google it.
My favorite thing to do is find a auto store that has just opened. The batteries there will be fresh.

Note these cars don't go through batteries as much as they are more sensitive to a low battery than most cars. This translates to "no start" conditions. I would caution about using anywhere near 2A as a maintenance charge. It will boil away the fluid eventually. The consensus for many years has been to use a "float charger".

I've never had to remove the batter connectors to charge a battery. If you going to use larger current like 10A (or even 2A) use a timer on the charger (any Christmas light timer or such will do)
Finally someone said that if you fully discharge a batter that it'll never quite be the same. This is true. Deep cycling a car battery is never a good thing. I euphemistically refer to it as "aging" a battery. It's like tacking 10yr to a humans life. That extra decade will come back to haunt you no matter how well you think you charged up the battery.

If you find a fresh battery, never deep cycle it and keep a float charger on it there is no reason you can't get 6-8yrs out of it.

[Dime]

Well I ended up putting a Napa Legend 75 in it. It's clearly a deka. Another thing I noticed was a small amount of fluid on the side of the battery that looked like it came out of the right vent; wiped it down with wet rags and put it in the car. Would that be something to worry about it doing again? I assume it happened on the drive home.

[VetteMed]

I can't say I've had a new battery leak acid like that... perhaps there's a defective cap?