Once a battery dies, is it dead?

I cant post photos · Friday at 16:25

I've already got my own answer to this question but I'm curious what others think. I've had countless batteries in cars and motorcycles die over the years and once they are dead, their days are numbered no matter how hard you try to resuscitate them.

Tried to start my bike this afternoon and the battery's dead as a doornail. I'm charging up the booster atm to give it a jump but I'll be ordering a new one anyway.

I've often said on these boards that life's too short to fanny about with dying batteries, but what is the concensus? Am I living in the past and the latest batteries are more than capable of being recovered?

d_brennen · Friday at 16:44

I had issues with a battery that kept dying in my car. Got it jumped, drove to Halfords to buy a battery. Guy there tried to talk me out of buying a battery and taking the car to a garage because his tester said the original was fine!

Suffice to say it's been fine with the new battery since summer last year. Once they play up, chop them in. I drive basically daily so there should be no going flat

hornetstinger · Friday at 16:48

What is dead cannot die.

Although apparently with non sealed lead acid batteries you could service them

jaybee · Friday at 16:53

A year or so ago I changed the battery in my friend's car as it wasn't quite making the cranking amps to reliably start the car. I kept the old one in my shed for months because I kept forgetting to go down the dump to properly dispose of it. It started to get in the way so I put it outside the shed which then got covered by all manor of rubbish for further months. One day I finally went to go down the dump and I thought I would measure the voltage just to see what it was, and it sat at 12.3 volts still. I would guess this was about 6 months or more after taking out of the car and just leaving it out in the cold. Cool story I know.

dave28 · Friday at 17:05

depends how deeply depleted it is and in my experience it helps to have very strong chargers with repair function

radderfire · Friday at 17:08

For lead acid batteries, if it's gone flat then I might give it a full recharge and see how it gets on after that, but if there continue to be problems I will then change it. Once they are on the way out then there's generally no reviving them.

I cant post photos · Friday at 17:21

Just tried to jump it, no dice. I suspect my jumper pack needs a new cell, so that's next on the list.

Pulled the battery out, 5.8v. I've put it on the charger for now, we'll see how it goes. It'll obviously start the bike once charged and will likely do it for some time but the duration it can go without being charged up will get shorter and shorter until I get stuck. This causes me to lose confidence in the bike and that sucks all the joy out of riding it, so I'm just gonna replace it and keep this one as a backup.

radderfire · Friday at 17:31

I think you can buy battery conditioners that can do more sophisticated things than just recharge, e.g. send pulses to remove corrosion. I think brands in this area are CTEK and NOCO.

K.C. Leblanc · Sunday at 11:08

My newish battery took an absolute hammering when my alternator died. The series of unfortunate events included the car being parked up for 2 months.

A year later the battery is still good.

Armageus · Sunday at 11:19

radderfire said:
I think you can buy battery conditioners that can do more sophisticated things than just recharge, e.g. send pulses to remove corrosion. I think brands in this area are CTEK and NOCO.

They will generally get a few months more out of a battery in my experience, but generally just delaying the inevitable