Battery dead, but testing good

[dutchman187]

So came out to a dead battery on Tuesday in my driveway. It is bitter cold in Iowa, so I chalked it up to that and not driving it for a few days. Charged it a few hours and it started.

Drove again on Thursday. Started ok. I had a weird issue when driving where it said to shift to P and choose desired gear. Made appt with dealer for this coming Monday.

Drove on Friday without issue, starting or otherwise.

Went to start today at 1215pm and it was dead. Put back on charger. Charged to 97% and drove 5 minutes to Advanced Auto. Guy said battery reads good, but was only at 56% charge. I drove back home and my tester read 50% at that point.

I charged again to 98 and drove 5 minutes to O'Reilly. They tested and said battery was good, but read it needed charged. They said alternator also read good. Interestingly, the guy said I was the third newer RAM in the last two weeks to come in with these symptoms.

Drove home, tester read it was down to 70%.

Dealer gets their shot tomorrow. I'm starting to think there is a connection between the two issues I've had this week.

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[BowDown]

Sounds like dead battery cells. The good cells allow it to still test good, takes a real battery test to determine if cells are dead, these 2-5 minutes tests don't work for that. That's also why you get to 70-90% charge so quickly now

 

[Richard320]

There have been a number of threads here about defective batteries and bizarre codes and error messages as a result of it. And a huge percentage of those got the brushoff by the dealer as well.

 

[dutchman187]

Sounds like dead battery cells. The good cells allow it to still test good, takes a real battery test to determine if cells are dead, these 2-5 minutes tests don't work for that. That's also why you get to 70-90% charge so quickly now

So judging by both your comments and Richard's, perhaps a new battery is in order. I assume dealer will do a proper battery test

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[Richard320]

So judging by both your comments and Richard's, perhaps a new battery is in order. I assume dealer will do a proper battery test

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I would not assume that. They may just stick a digital tester on it and press the button and if it says good, call it done. Which as I commented a week or so ago, is pretty stupid. "Charge & Test" doesn't pay as well as "Test & Replace" and all they have to do if they suspect an iffy battery that won't fail the test is to go test a known bad battery -- one in the junk pile waiting to get hauled away -- and test it and use that printout.

 

[dutchman187]

Dealer did a proper test and said battery was bad. Replaced under 3yr/36K warranty. Fingers crossed that resolves it all

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