WHICH? car reliability survey

[richlist]

So why is it generally accepted that if your car battery needs replacing after 7 years you are doing pretty well.
I just replaced one on a Mercedes at 8 years......why do electric car batteries last longer ?

[Breelander]

So why is it generally accepted that if your car battery needs replacing after 7 years you are doing pretty well.
I just replaced one on a Mercedes at 8 years......why do electric car batteries last longer ?

Chemistry - an ordinary car battery is lead-acid, with a known degradation over time due to sulfation of the plates.

Electric car batteries are lithium based (AFAIK) much like the batteries in a laptop. A lithium battery suffers a small decrease in the maximum charge it can hold with each full charge/discharge cycle. Careful design of the charging circuits and the batteries can reduce, but not eliminate this effect.

Battery University | How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries

[bluedonkey]

I've had Toyotas for nearly 30 years. Largest bill in all that time was about £600. I had previously had a Fiat and had got fed up with never being sure whether it would get me to my destination.

[staffordian]

I've had Toyotas for nearly 30 years. Largest bill in all that time was about £600. I had previously had a Fiat and had got fed up with never being sure whether it would get me to my destination.

Well, FIAT does stand for Fix It Again Tomorrow, doesn't it?

[DrFfybes]

So why is it generally accepted that if your car battery needs replacing after 7 years you are doing pretty well.
I just replaced one on a Mercedes at 8 years......why do electric car batteries last longer ?

Because they aren't designed to be a £60-90 consumable, they are an integral part of the drive train.

If you had to replace your entire fuel system every 7 years it might have an impact on used prices

Paul

[richlist]

So why is it generally accepted that if your car battery needs replacing after 7 years you are doing pretty well.
I just replaced one on a Mercedes at 8 years......why do electric car batteries last longer ?

Because they aren't designed to be a £60-90 consumable, they are an integral part of the drive train.

If you had to replace your entire fuel system every 7 years it might have an impact on used prices

Paul

That's somewhat optimistic on price......battery for the Mercedes was £157, battery for the range rover £180.

[bungeejumper]

Because they aren't designed to be a £60-90 consumable, they are an integral part of the drive train.

If you had to replace your entire fuel system every 7 years it might have an impact on used prices

That's somewhat optimistic on price......battery for the Mercedes was £157, battery for the range rover £180.

Sixty quid did it recently for my Toyota, and the same again for my wife's Golf. (Both at six years, Vartas with a good spec.) You're more than welcome to spend three times amount that on your Range Rover, of course, but it isn't necessary on lesser cars.

Of course, I did fit the two batteries myself, a ten minute job which meant (a) that I can now get a tenner each from the scrappy for the old ones, and (b) that I didn't have to pay a RR mechanic £120 an hour for the privilege.

BJ

[richlist]

Because they aren't designed to be a £60-90 consumable, they are an integral part of the drive train.

If you had to replace your entire fuel system every 7 years it might have an impact on used prices

That's somewhat optimistic on price......battery for the Mercedes was £157, battery for the range rover £180.

Sixty quid did it recently for my Toyota, and the same again for my wife's Golf. (Both at six years, Vartas with a good spec.) You're more than welcome to spend three times amount that on your Range Rover, of course, but it isn't necessary on lesser cars.

Of course, I did fit the two batteries myself, a ten minute job which meant (a) that I can now get a tenner each from the scrappy for the old ones, and (b) that I didn't have to pay a RR mechanic £120 an hour for the privilege.

BJ

Yes my costs included a workman for supplying and fitting and disposing of.......what do you think I am, working class ? I'm really not interested in getting my hands dirty and I certainly have never been to a scrap yard in my life. I don't think I have ever used a spanner but I have used a screwdriver once or twice.

[bungeejumper]

I'm really not interested in getting my hands dirty and I certainly have never been to a scrap yard in my life. I don't think I have ever used a spanner but I have used a screwdriver once or twice.

Oh, I'm so sorry. It must be awful to be so helpless.

You're not alone, though, my son in law wouldn't know which end of a screwdriver was the handle. Every time we go up to their place to fix something, we have to take tools for every possible permutation of the problem, because the one thing we can rely on is that he doesn't have a drill or a hammer in the house, never mind a spanner. He can usually borrow a paint brush from his ten year old daughter, though.

BJ

[bungeejumper]

O/T, but the old-school mechanic I used to use (now long since retired) had a nice little line in maintaining Rangies and an AC Cobra and a couple of Rolls Royce Corniches on behalf of a local collector. He'd got the owner's business after his specialist garage had tried to stiff him for £700 to fit a new window winder button into the driver's door of his Range Rover. Just the rocker switch alone had been £150 plus VAT - and that was fifteen years ago!

My mechanic popped the switch out, soldered the component that had gone duff, and charged him fifty. He had a loyal customer for life.

BJ