My trucks build date is 10/03, it sat outside last week without being touched for 8 days. Went out Thursday nite at about 2degrees and it started fine. WITH THE ORIGINAL BATTERY. I have a new one in garage just want to see how far this one will go.

 

Just lucky....

 

I got 11 years out of my 99 F150 battery. I sold the truck last winter with the original battery in it. I ran into the buyer a few weeks back and he just replaced the original 4 months ago. That is a good battery life.

 

It's hit or miss. I just had replaced the battery in my '08 on Tuesday, 2.5 yrs and 10k miles on the truck. I have the original battery in my '02 Exp., 107k miles (9 yr old original battery).

 

I almost had to replace my battery last week. With the cold temps I was having trouble starting. Got one of those solar powered battery maintainers and now I'm not having any trouble.

 

Which one did you install?

 

Just a little 1.8 watt solar panel.
http://www.tractorsupply.com/generat...tainer-8500046

In the summer I'll probably use this one for charging the stereo battery in my kayak.

 

Just replaced mine on thursday. Mine is an 08 with 32k miles on it. The factory was only 540 cold cranking amps. Didn't cut it. The new one is 880 cca. Much better.

 

Do the solar ones actually work ? My work truck has so much electrical equipment in it that if it sits for more than two days it's dead. When possible I put a battery tender on it and never have an issue but most of the time I have to park where there is no electrical outlet. If these work that would be great at little expense.

 

Yes, they do work. BUT, if your battery is running dead in 2 days from ALL the electrical equipment, you're gonna have to mount one the length of the bed to overcome that drain! That 1.8 watt isn't going to do anything! One thing you could do is mount a constant duty, heavy duty solenoid between the battery and the distribution box. Run the wire for the switch directly to the battery so that the switch is operational at all times. That way you can switch the battery off when you get out of the truck at the end of the work day. If you need any of that equipment to be powered up (standby) all the time, that wouldn't work. Also, every time you reconnect the battery, (switch on), the clock would need resetting, anything relying on KA (keep alive) would have to boot up and relearn. Up's and down's to each scenario, but at least you don't come back to a dead battery (IF the battery IS in good condition.

 

Code58 offered some good ideas. The one I'm using was not meant to run a bunch of electronics. I could probably at most run my trail GPS off of it. I'll be using it in my kayak just because it doesn't take much electricity to keep the tunes running. They also make one about 3 times the size that is supposed to be a weatherproof battery charger. It is about $80 but I've never used it so I can't vouch for the quality or ability. From what I've seen with my solar pannels in the last year or two in the kayak it is worth looking into.

 

a 1.8w charger is .15a @12v which is plenty for a normal battery drain. Normal quiescent drain is usually in the .015a to .020a range on newer vehicles. Im not sure on the exact spec for a F150

 

Yeah, it puts out quite a bit unless you go by the maximum voltage output of 36 volts. I've measured it at full power and it reads about 19-25 volts depending on light which is a pretty normal 12V charging voltage on low amp solar panels. I dont have an amp meter (and if mine has it I haven't figure out how to make it work) so I dont know for sure what the true wattage is.

 

I replaced my stock battery last month, it was from late 2003 as well. It didn't fail, I was just getting nervous and it did seem to be turning over slower on those cold morning starts.

I hope my new one lasts as long!

 

Just figured out how to check the amperage with my meter. I'm getting .033 amps at 19 volts at the moment. Comes out to a whopping .63 watts
That offsets the draw from the keep-alive memory and stuff.