Hi all,
I live in Maine and have a 2012 mazda 5, less than 2 years from dealer (Morong Falmouth). Car wont start on most days right now during cold stretch. I brought it in to shop and they tested it and said the battery is fine, but the cold cranking amps (CCA) is only 250 amps. They said the car would be fine in florida but not here.
I took it to dealer and they said there was nothing wrong with the battery so they wont replace it.
This obviously isnt right and Im going to try to fight this - Im curious if anyone else had this experience. Maybe they stripped the real battery out (is there a default kind I should see in there).
Any advice?
Also my oem tires have only 15,000 are now need to be replaced - that too cant be normal - right? I know oem tires dont last, but that seems really short.
For the record, MORONG of Falmouth sucks - completely unhelpful and questionable at all turns.
Thanks all.

 

Buy a AGM flat plate battery and wrap it with insulation!
The insulation keeps hot and cold air off your battery for longer life. Yes heat kills your battery but you don't notice it until it's cold!
Wrap the sides of your battery all the way around. Leave bottom, top alone.
Even though my car is a Mazda 6, the principles are the same. Don't buy Optima, they are cylindrical with gaps inbetween which air can get at! Odyssey Batteries have 15% more plates than Optima in the same space. the design of the flat plates allows more plates to be packed into the battery avoiding the “dead space” area between cylinders in the “six-pack” design.
Sears Diehard Platinum = Odyssey
From page 4 post #35: https://www.mazdaforum.com/forum/maz...s-27572/page4/

 

You should have received a "tire warranty" with your purchasing papers. What does it say?

 

I'm not in any hurry to convince you to spend money on a new battery, especially if you end up in the same spot less than two years from now. So if your car won't start most days, is it safe to assume you jump-start it to get it going? If so, it is likely that your battery has been deeply-discharged. It is also unlikely that your car's charging system is going to fully-charge it from just driving around. If that is the case, you could end up finding yourself in a cycle of dead batteries and jump-starts, until either the battery really does fail or the alternator does...or both.

What is the voltage of your battery right now? That is important, especially in the area you live in, because batteries that are not fully-charged are more vulnerable to freezing at warmer temperatures. You can wrap all the insulation you want around any battery, but if it isn't fully-charged, bad things can happen in cold temperatures.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries
OPTIMA® Batteries (optimabatteries) on Pinterest

 

Let me throw 2 copper pennies at the battery question.
The first thing that should be done is a load test.
And the you would want to know if there is a draw on the battery when the car is parked.

And fianlly about the thing with the insulation for a battery: The battery works on an electro-chemical process that is exothermic. No matter if it is being charged or if it is discharging: When the ions flow some heat is being created. When it is very cold that electrochemical process is severely slowed down. Now the insulation can help: let's say you are driving a short distance , no insulation on the battery. The starting of the engine has pulled a bunch of ions over and now that the alternator is spinning it tries to push the ions back. However the battery is so cold that only let's say 85% makes it back. After a few days of that pattern the battery will be too weak to start the engine.
Let's say you insulate the battery. Now the alternator has less resistance to push the ions back because the battery keeps more of the exothermic heat and thus is operates in a more efficient range. Hopefully it manages to push all these ions and a few more back onto the plates where they came from.