Hey all, Im new to this forum and hoping to get some good help, and return as much as I can. I drive a 2005 Ford 6.0 all stock with 119k. So I was in an accident a bit ago, and one thing led to another. A low battery caused my FICM to malfunction which in turn damaged my injectors. I am currently waging war on the other parties insurance to get them to cover damages. We t-boned a vehicle (her fault) and there was driver side damage. Nothing too serious besides the transcooler being replaced. We hit going about 25-30 mph. There was no visible damage to the batteries that I saw. Here is my question. Can a battery be jarred or jolted enough during an accident to cause a cell in the battery to short and slowly die without being physically struck?

 

I don't think the jolt of the battery's would do it , did you have the truck towed? Maybe the tow truck driver left the key on or a light , other than low battery's and the life cycle of mixed matched battery's , how old are they ? Your next step before replacing would be to bench test the Alternator and make sure the cables are in good shape. Sorry to here about your Accedent , hope everybody is ok

 

I dunno... heat and vibration are the two big battery killers. A good smack won't do it any good, especially if it was getting a little long in the tooth. Sometimes a smack will kind of rejuvenate 'em too. But I could see the grids damaged or a lot crap getting stirred up. Does it test OK?

 

In my opinion, yes it can. The hard part is to prove the accident caused the shorted cell.

 

An accident like that can absolutely cause a shorted cell in a regular lead-acid battery. It can also cause a nick in the wiring that's hard to find but shorts to the body and kills the battery...

 

On my big rig & in my 6.0 I've dealt with battery failures for many years. Cracked cells are a PIA to diagnose since it's sometimes intermittent. My 6.0 had a cracked cell, every time I would plow & push a pile of snow into a big pile, the slight jarring bump would stall the engine. Was a joy to find out it was a simple bad battery.

A good old fashioned manual carbon pile tester will tell you if it's bad. Make that battery work/smoke to test it! I have had many problems with the electronic battery testers these days, they show the battery is good while the ol carbon pile tester proves otherwise.

 

I'd agree with that, if they show a battery is bad, it almost certainly is bad but if they test good it ain't necessarily so.

 

x 3 agree.


The new type of battery testers are certainly more convenient and quick for professional use, because they don't require hauling a huge SUN VAT-40 resistance load tester to the vehicle, which saves money in labor time... but the results of electronic inductance, conductance, and/or capacitance testers, while mostly accurate, have yet to completely eclipse a good old fashioned ohmic heavy duty resistive load test. Thankfully, the still evolving newer testing technology has rendered the older tried and true technology more affordable in the used market place.

I have a tried and true load tester that more than once resolved the puzzle on why a battery fails in service, and yet passes when brought back to the place of purchase and "passes" the store's fully featured electronic Midtronics battery testers with their fancy printouts.

Just type in the CCA, and the tester takes a temperature reading, zaps the surface charge (if recently charged), and applies a REAL load, such as the kind of load the battery sees when starting an engine, and then makes a determination from there. The test process takes 60 seconds, versus 6 seconds of modern day testers, so that right there provided sufficient incentive for retail operations to prefer the newer, lighter, faster testing equipment. But the real judgment day seems to still remain in the realm of the load test.


Testing a battery acting up on an FTE member's Expedition:



Nevermind the negative number. I didn't have my glasses on, and hooked up the amp clamp with the arrow pointed the wrong way. Just pretend the - is a +:







This particular load tester will not fail, nor will it pass, a battery if it determines that the battery was insufficiently charged during the test. Hence, more adjudication time... since the battery must now be charged first before a determination can be made:



After fully recharging the battery (for many hours, not just minutes), a subsequent retest resolved the question:



Here are some other potential "verdicts", on different batteries I've tested:



Now entering their 8th year in service, the pair of Enersys Odyssey AGM (aka DieHard PLATINUM) batteries in my truck each load tested:



I noticed that my local "Batteries 'n Bulbs" store has a true load tester similar to mine. That could be an alternative way for you to get a "second opinion" regarding a battery's state of health, if the results of the modern capacitance or conductance testers done at the dealership or by other stores are not consistent with your battery's actual performance.

Regular wet cell lead acid batteries are cheap enough to make the extra effort getting a second opinion not worth the time or trouble. But if considering the benefits of more expensive VRLA batteries (like AGMs) at approximately twice the cost, each, then a good, reliable battery tester begins to make more sense to either locate at an independent shop, or acquire on Craigs, eBay, or the like.

I chose the latter, because I don't like mooching independent shop time for free, and the cost per hour to pay for that time on just a couple of visits exceeds the costs of acquiring the equipment (used) to simply test it myself.

 

This is the one I've used for about 10 years...

little bigger than a common household battery charger & has handled every battery I've thrown at it.

if its 1k or less CCA it'll make er smoke! As a word of caution tho, always wear safety glasses. A cracked cell/shorted battery can explode!

 

I guess the OP didn't get his insurance fighting answer he was looking for.

I too still wish I had the carbon pile tester of years past. It was the most comfortable determination I would have, next came spec grav readings and interpretation. Spec grav is going away as battery manufacturers continue to provide more sealed batteries, even with flood cell.

I'm just starting to play with the electronic testers and I'm seeing a good variation due to battery temperature at least with the unit I have. While these units may not be preferred by some of us to a good carbon pile unit, especially one that reads amps and voltage accurately, getting into a warranty situation when the store relies on its electronic tester as the sole determination such as Ford dealers currently do, we may be spinning our wheels. We may discover a battery that is not good thereby uncovering the cause of our issues, whereas the selling source states the worst term heard by a vehicle owner, "no problem found".

 

As a practical matter the end user can perform their own kind of load test with battery installed in the truck, provided the ignition can be disabled safely. Measuring battery voltage drop at the posts during engine cranking for ten seconds or so is a real world test and will expose a marginal or failing battery.

 

That's an old farm trick and I was always hesitant to bring that up here.

 

Well, that's the thing. It's not exactly a farmer trick, battery chemistry hasn't really changed all that much in a hundred years. The old shop manuals, MoToRs manuals, all showed how to accurately remove "surface charge" and test the open circuit voltage, apply a load and test for "bounce back" after ten minutes or so. Specific gravity testing is tough because most batteries are sealed these days, but a reasonably accurate voltmeter is all that's required. A healthy or serviceable battery will always exhibit certain characteristics that are easily measured.

 

I bought my carbon pile tester at Harbor Freight. Works great. Not a lot of technology involved. A specific gravity test is also a good indication.

 

So if I crank on my MDX or F-350 for ten seconds whats the pass/fail value?