So i have 2 batteries from Walmart the Maxx Ever Start 65 850 cca which have been steller for since march 2019.. Well the other day when in PA I was noticing when starting especially in morning it was a bit slow for the first crank but after that ok..

Well we did a 7 hr run from Hershey PA to Raleigh to get home to fix the fricken oil leak i have been dealing with and the morning after when trying to crank it would not turn over.. tried to jump but that was not possible with the small car.. I get a charger and put on for the evening a 15 amp model till the next mid day and it turned over fine..

Off to walmart to get battery checked and they were saying the passenger battery was at like 440 cc and the driver battery was at 825cc.. now it does look like the passenger has a big wire coming off heading down to the starter and there is teh crossover cable from right to left batteries.

Has anyone experienced this kind of issue.

I did have an event a while back where the OBD dongle was left in during a time of some 7-9 day of non use and truck would not turn over.. We were able after hooking up to car and doing fast idle for 10-15 min get enough juice to get it started and we drove some 20 miles to get back. The next morning same issue with low batter so i put on charge for couple days to get back up to full charge.. other than the two event they have been great.

The recommendation was to replace the one battery under warranty to replace the weak battery now. I understand the keep dates codes together but funds for new batteries is limited for a bit.

 

Picture of battery

 

resistance in the cable or connections can cause an imbalance between the batteries.
At the age of our trucks all the connections should be suspect, and many people have had issues with corrosion inside the cables.

I would measure resistance between all the battery connections and the alternator case or charge post respectively.
Edit: I feel at/under .5 ohms is acceptable.

Then replace the bad battery. Sure, it might not be absolutely perfect, but the new battery will run fine with an older one.

 

roger that .. will give that a shot in the morning.. could be a bad or weak crossover cable for sure.. easy to check and fix.. thanks..

 

Don't forget the grounds. If one battery has a poor or intermittent ground that's as good as only having the 1 battery. Any and all DC circuits are 100% dependent on grounding.

 

Just backing up whats beens said... my cable was so corroded, that there was no continuity from the passenger battery, to the wire, i ran mine with only one functional battery for way to long, before i figured that out. Replaced the cable, was dang near miraculous how much better it got. Point being that if you see a lot of green.... its probably under that lead casting, too....

 

As mentioned above... Batteries, cables, connectors, lugs and continuity between all of those bits and pieces make up the charging and electrical system of your truck. The system is ONLY as good as the WEAKEST link and after 20+ years of being in service, there may be more than one weak link.

That said, I have lost ALL FAITH in the flooded lead acid (FLA) batteries built today. Some people report great success with CAT and other batteries, but that was never my case. I jumped ship to the AGM battery (pure lead) years ago and laughed at the FLA boat that was dead in the water as we went by.

Even my John Deere riding mower has a 12v lithium battery I kept from my motorcycle days.

Buy once, cry once...

 

With the OEM stock wiring, I've always noticed that the passenger side battery (nearest to the draw point of all OEM loads) tends to get weaker faster than the driver's side battery.

Making the batteries "more parallel," by reducing the resistance between these two batteries, is what the consensus of responses in this thread have been all about.

Some folks have replaced the cross-over (paralleling) cable with a thicker one. Some have added a second cable.

In my case, I added two additional B+ cables between the left and right batteries, for a total of three cross over cables.

But that don't mean diddly without good connections.

Kind of like education and talent are often underutilized... without good connections.

I had been running three (3) B+ cross over cables for about seven (7) years, and over a brief period of time earlier this year, I began to notice sluggish starting.

I knew it wasn't my batteries, as they were made from the frozen flatulence of Zeus, the Greek God of Thunder and Lightning.... so I didn't bother worrying about those.

And I already had three paralleling B+ Cables, plus, each battery had an additional ground cable tied directly to the block (not the fender, not the frame... the BLOCK, were the largest loads, starter and glow plugs, are also grounded.)

So what could the issue be?

It was the connections at the battery.

No corrosion, as AGM batteries don't outgas (instead, they recombine that chemistry in their absorbing mats).

Rather, it was a lack of sufficient friction in a cable connection that I had drilled into the underside of the big lead block (OEM passenger side B+ battery terminal in use until late 2001), combined with vibration over time, combined with heat "melting" the silicon dielectric grease applied over the connections, and once that grease had lower viscosity, it wicked in between the vibration loosened surfaces of my earlier wonky connection, avalanching more loosening, and more electrical resistance.

So I fixed it by changing my secondary paralleling cable connection away from the lead block, and into the bolt that tightens the lead block onto the battery terminal post. I had to chuck the OEM bolt and make a threaded rod out of a longer bolt, but got it done.

The difference was instantaneous.

Seriously.

It was as if I bought new batteries (Or as if Zeus cut another one... eewww!)

In the photo below, the two additional paralleling cables are all the way to the left, and all the way to the right, although only the LUG to the cable on the right can be seen, at the very end of the clamping stud, as the cable itself is hidden underneath a battery cover, and it runs underneath the original OEM paralleling cable, which is more visible, with the convoluted cable cover.

 

I make it a habit to clean all four of the lead connections at the batteries at least once a year.

 

Wow that custom terminal is daddy.

Well whe walmart checked to passenger side battery it was showing 93 cca not 850. It was one of the last 5 yr warranty maxx batteries from walmart. Its 3 replacement and pro rated last 2. Now it just 3 yrs.

I got a new date code 8/22 battery at no cost. It was quick and painless. Highly recommend walmart batteries.
no to oil leak.

 

The imagery induced pondering the harvesting and processing of such a substance is as comical as it is unsettling. I believe you win the internet today sir.