[johnnyw]

I'm a little embarrassed to be posting a problem this soon, but here goes....

I bought a beautiful polished metal '09 EX earlier TODAY and have a question concerning the battery. After a pretty quick purchase process, we went out to dinner to celebrate. Since I'm a careless idiot I left the headlights on! I guess I'm used to driving a car with an automatic light option, but no excuses...

After only an hour and a half at dinner, the battery had died. Some local firefighters had jumpers and totally saved our asses, but I was a bit surprised by the life of the battery. We drove around for a while and kept the car running for 40 minutes or so. Since jumping it, the car has started fine.

My question is, should I be concerned about the battery? Usually it takes way longer than 1.5 hrs of headlights on to kill a battery right (I've done this before ; ). Should I have it checked out? replaced?

Thanks for your help!

Johnny

 

[slimerdogs]

Its not a problem. The battery does not have a long amp hour life but will work good under normal conditions. Mine is the original and is over 5 years old and still going strong for cranking porposes but the amp hour rating is reduced. If you use accesories a lot while the engine is off you may want to look into getting a bigger replacement with a larger amp hour rating.

 

[MikeQBF]

Since you just brought it home odds are you weren't starting out with a full charge. Batteries in vehicles sitting on car lots tend to have little opportunity to get run long enough to recharge despite being started a couple of times a week as inventory is shuffled.

Some car dealers have the practice of topping off the charge with an external charger in the delivery prep just to prevent experiences like yours which result in customer satisfaction issues.

 

[Soapy]

I did the same ting with my new 08 but not headlights...just the 2 dome lights overnight. My car had been on the lot for a long time and I don't think the battery was fully charged. Be sure to check the little green window on the top of the battery which will indicate if the battery is fully charged. You may not get it to full charge state by just driving it. If the indicator is not full green in a couple of days get the battery charged with a charger.

 

[JPH102900]

Your battery should be fine. I've done similar things before. I was working on my car for an afternoon and left the keys in the ignition so that I could listen to the radio while I worked. After an hour or two I tried to start the car and it wouldn't turn over. I used my mom's car to jump it and drove to Advanced Auto Parts and they tested the battery and said it was fine. I went home and continued to work only to have the battery die again. So I jumped it again and took it to the honda mechanic that we use about 45 minutes away since I thought something was wrong with the car. Got a call the next day that nothing was wrong and that I had just been killing the battery by listening to the radio for too long without running the engine. I felt pretty stupid.

 

[johnnyw]

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one to make this mistake! I hadn't considered the fact that the battery might not be at a full charge after sitting at the dealership. It started up this morning with no problems whatsoever. I'm considering purchasing one of those portable chargers to make sure it's at a full charge and to prepare for the inevitable mistakes like this in the future.

Thanks everyone!

Johnny