2000 Accord battery discharge

I have a 2000 Accord EX that gets driven seldomn in the winter. The
question I have is how long should the battery (Brand new) maintain a
charge without the engine being run ? The only current draw should be
the alarm and the memory for the radio. The colder weather of course
affects it. It has been in the 20's to 30's for some time now. I have
an older 88 Mazda 626 that can sit for a month and still start right
up.

 

Still having the battery discharge problem. The car won't start after
sitting for 3-4 days. I've measured the current drain which is under
40 milliamps. This should be reasonable for the alarm, clock & radio
standby needs. Any thoughts or similar experiences ?

 

Jay Fowler wrote:
| Still having the battery discharge problem. The car won't start after
| sitting for 3-4 days. I've measured the current drain which is under
| 40 milliamps. This should be reasonable for the alarm, clock & radio
| standby needs. Any thoughts or similar experiences ?

40 milliamps is nothing. The battery has, according to carsdirect.com,
either 52AH (4 banger) or 55AH (V6) (ampere-hours), so a constant drain of
40mA would take 1,300 or 1,375 hours to completely discharge a full battery,
which would amount to almost two months.

3..4 days is way below what to expect. That would mean your battery has
(assuming it's fully charged) less than 4AH capacity left. Not good.

Two possibilities:
- the battery is going towards the end if its life. If you had deeply
discharged it once or multiple times, this is fully to be expected, as the
battery's plates chemically decompose under full discharge conditions.

- the battery is actually more or less ok, but it's not being charged
enough. Either your trips are not long enough to fully recharge it, or
something in your alternator/regulator/charger circuit is wrong.

 

Pull the battery and take it to Autozone. They can charge it and put a
load test on it (free). Likely the battery has internal damage, perhaps
the result of an accidental full discharge. This test should tell you
whether you need a new one or not.