agm starter batteries bad- better think again !

i have a story for some that might find this interesting. its going to be long, so read it a few times to get the fundamentals of where its going. it all started when i hurt my back loading my 3 car battery starter cart into the trailer. fed up with the weight, i bought a rcd starter pack. $700.00 then, $1200 dollars now. dont get me started on a 500 dollar increase in 5 years, thats another subject alltogether. now, dont get me wrong. everything ive bought from rcd has been real nice and bitchin quality. now, like everybody else, i blew up the motor in my car and the batteries sat for awhile. now the battery maker says these batteries can sit for 5 years, and goto dead charge 500 times before they go bad. wrong. these sat for only a year, and i put them on charge with my 48v rcd charger, and it said charged, but was acting a little funny with the lights, well, it wouldnt even turn the motor over! checking the batteries they had 7-10 v in each which would explain that. so i separated them and tried charging individually with a old 1980 schumacher battery manual charger. they took a little charge and pretty much stayed the same. now, being someone that loves to spend money, i called rcd and oddessey and they both said, they didnt know why, but buy some more at 120.00 apiece. gee, thanks guys i didnt think of that. there was no way these should be bad only being a year or 2 old and only used a few times. now, schumachers now making a selectable battery chargers for lead acid, agm, vented gel batteries. there was an article in drag racer magazine which had a good story on a few types. i called schumonster and they wanted 159.00 for it. they dont carry this one at wallmart since its special, but i did find it for 104.00 at nationaltoolwarehouse.com 18663581919 . part number shu-psc-12500a, and it was here in 1 day. great deal with no bs. so, i hooked it up and tried charging them on the agm setting. charger comes back on all 4 with bad battery displayed, great. after lots of internet searching, somebody with rc cars says to do this. hook up your charger (manual type) to a lead acid battery around 50 percent charged, then run leads from that one to your agm battery, puting it in parallel with the lead acid and charge. well, i have nothing to loose at this point , so why not. after trying 2 amps for a few days, its going from 7v to 10 v standing, hmmmmm . ill try 10a charging. after a few days, this things back at 12 to 13 v standing and now passed the agm charging on the new style charger ! now, ive done this to all 4 and after 4-7 days of charging,theyve all come back and ive tried it on a 90lb agm motorhome battery that had .19 v when i started, and it wouldnt take a normal charge either. now its come back and load tests fine with my snap on real type load tester,(not a hand held). now, i dont know why, and havent come across anybody that could explain what charging these this way does to the agm battery, but it works. they never got hot,or overheated, which is what kills these type batteries. i was at a so cal nitro racers shop, and they had dozens of these laying on a shelf called bad battery shelf, and i wonder how many of these were really shot? thanks rcd and oddessey for being vague and useless, but maybe its better service to find answers more than to make more sales for your customers. i dunno dont cut it! anybody with any ideas why this works, and if it works for you i would like to hear from you. try this, and it might work for old deep cycle batteries that went dead too, im not talking ones made in 1979 either ! be reasonable with this info. thanks ita

 

Very interesting. I can't tell you how many whiz bang batteries I have thrown out for this very reason. Same reason I don't buy any of the buggers anymore.
But I will have to try this when the time comes.

Thanks
Dave Koehler
http://www.koehlerinjection.com

 

i've got a AGM battery that took a chit on me, it is a little over 1 year old . I gonna give your method a try and will get back to you with the results. Hope it works.

Thanks Matt

 

Found this on the Optima website.

http://www.optimabatteries.com/product_support/resuscitating_agmbattery.php

 

wow, they finally copped up to it. this makes sense since we use the red top optima at my work for a bunch, 2500 fleet vehicles. when they are dead, forget it. it takes a long time to recover them, but they will. optimas are considered agm,s i think, since they are spiral wound fiberglass matt, but a small difference, but they seem to work good, with only a few spilling their guts on the cables. havent tried their deep cycle ones, but i know the chp has tried them because of all their radios, and such that have a lot of draw, and havent really found them to be any more reliable. its right on the money about the new chargers, they wont charge if they think somethings wrong, but i found it may takes weeks,not hours for the battery to take off on its own.here is another battery that i got from a recently salvaged motorhome, the specs are good. it was at .19v when i started.http://www.lifelinebatteries.com/marineflyer.php?id=6, look at the cycles good at 50percent discharged and 100 percent discharged. thanks for the reply. dan

 

I went through a community college auto mechanics course back in the 70s and learned that trick there. No agms back then. Also, an alternator will not charge a dead battery but a generator will. Sometimes old tech is best.

 

I charged mine for a day, tester says 14 vlots put a load on it and goes to zero, think i overcharged it.

 

bad bad battery

like i posted, it may take quite a while before you see any results, my 135 lb agm battery took almost 2 weeks of charging while connected to another wet cell battery to come back. good luck

 

Optima yellow top

Dan; my "34 Plymouth would get driven maybe 100 miles a year in the last 5 years, so I encountered the same problem. My Schumacher $125.00 automatic sensing trickle mode charger used to be hooked up a lot, but no offense to Schmacher, I was nervous about burning my house down, so only turned it on when I was home for a day.
I have my StreetRodder mag in the......ahem, library for morning reading, and they had a tech article about a year ago that read easier than the above listed Optima site.
My yellow top would not take a charge, and read 9.9 amp. I stole the std. battery out of my wife's beater Toyota pickup, jumper cabled it to the hot rod and checked it an hour later, got 10.4, checked again after another hour, got 10.9.
Then unplugged all, hooked the charger direct to the yellow top, and it showed it was taking a charge. Three hours later my "dead" yellow top was like new again.
Worked for me, but I loved that last paragraph on Optima's site !

 

I have done a simalar thing by just running jumper cables from a vehicle running electric start generator etc. to the AGM or other battery that was too low to charge and letting it sit connected to the jumpers for a half hour to an hour.

 

tile cover

yes, i found your old street rodder mags very good as they are my new tile floor cover in my bathroom! shamwow has nothing on these things! i think i may market a new oil bucket with these as well! thanks bob. go drive that car, geeeez.