Since it was such a beautiful day, I opted to spend the day detailing the eldorado. Zaino'd the car twice, Never-Dull'd the wheels, claybar'd the rocker panels, and cleaned/treated the leather. I think I fell in love with the car all over again (well, this would be about the 10000th time i guess!)

Here's the kicker. When I was polishing (a good hour or so), I had the CD changer playing. Not loud at all, but it was on for a while. You know how the rest of this story goes... hit the starter to get the 'clickclickclickclick!"

AAA came within 20 minutes with the jump-pack, got it started right up. Runs fine now. Here's my question - What should be the "reserve" time on a 3 year old AC Delco Battery? I feel like running the radio for an hour shouldn't be THAT much of a drain, but with all the Bose Amps, maybe I'm underestimating the draw.

Secondly, The green-eye is NEVER green. Since the battery was a year old, I never saw the green-eye. Should I be making a warrenty claim (since the batt has a 7-year warranty)? I was once told the green-eye is not relivent to the condition of the battery... but i find it hard to believe. If it didn't mean anything, why'd they put it there?

Just looking for some battery insight! Hope everybody had a great weekend!

-Scott

Not being much of an expert on batteries, etc. I myself would just take it down to Autozone, tell them about it, have them test it. If they find anythign wrong, then call in for your warranty

The green eye tells you the condition of just that one cell of the battery. The eye could be green, but one of your other cells could be dead. I do understand that your eye is not green, so that cells is probably bad...others could be also. Get a quick test on your battery like the terrible one said.

The reserve on a 3 year old AC Delco should be MUCH more than that... I had a 4 year old Delco battery in my old Taurus, and it NEVER died out on me - even in the middle of winter cranking my engine for 20 minutes trying to start that peice of crap it never died

Get a volt meter, make sure it is getting a full charge, and that your alternator is charging it fully. If your alternator isn't working properly, in my experience, the battery wont have a full charge to it

you fell in love with that car? if so, put in a Optima YellowTop, and you will never again have any trouble with your battery :cool:


With that Optima you can listen your CD player 4 days without brake and your car will still start like nothing happened. :rolleyes:

If the eye wasn't green then you either have a bad battery or there is a problem with your charging system.

I've had 4 cars with Delco Batteries and their eyes were green when they worked (or if they weren't, there was a problem).

But I never yet dated a green-eyed girl... :hmm:

So, that could be part of your problem. Also, did you leave any of the doors open? Caddies light up like Christmas trees inside. That many interior lamps draw lots of current too.

Peteski

You should have more reserve capacity than that. Your battery is probably bad based on the indicator. I'm not sure about AC Delcos but most batteries are free replacement for X years and pro-rated after that. Ask about your particular model at any AC Delco dealer.

It's a good idea though to check your charging system. Something caused the battery to fail prematurely. Either a battery defect or a bad charging system.

Same thing just happened to me yesterday. My kid waxed, etc. the whole car while playing the cd..bose...not loud but for a few hours. Doors open but no lights on.

Same thing...just clicking when we tried to start it. Once jumped it seemed to charge up and can restart, etc.

My green light is dark also. I just got the car and do not know what it (green light) used to do but I do know every other car I've had with the maintenance free lights usually light up unless they are going bad.

Two questions...1) what was your result and 2) did your dash warning lights stay lit and gauges go off after the dead battery? Mine did and I'm told it's normal when the battery is disconnected/dead but I don't know how to reset it? Any info wold be appreciated. It's the weekend and the dealer is not open.

OK, so I brought the car back to the dealer this AM. Turns out they "thought" it was just some random malfunction last week and "rebooted" the eprom or whatever. Really, they had no idea what was wrong but the "reboot" worked to solve the symptoms (and it was a Friday afternoon with a hurricane on the horizon).

OK forget the previous post......

Today, they (the dealer) (essentially, but in not exact words) admitted that there is no "normal" reset necessary when you replace or disconnect the battery. The problem was just a bad battery ( about 4 years old) that they did not check last week. Once they replaced the battery with a new one everything was fine and they said that was probably the problem.

I'll let it go for a few days then update the post.


..and these are the certified mechanics....??

12 hours later... so far, everything is OK.