How do you guys decide when to replace a battery?
Mine is now 5 years old.
I'd rather not wait until I am stranded.
Should I not push it, and just replace it for $125 ?

12.8v when off
14.1v when running

 

depends...what's the warranty on it?

 

If you live in cold weather it's not a bad idea. I just did it in the fall. That or keep a jump starter in the jeep at all times.

 

8 years. So, I can get a prorated $40 refund.
But, that is dishonest, since the battery is fine.

 

Not many battery warranties over 5 years.

 

there's a few and quite a few are lifetime warranties as well....the post above yours states his is 8 year warranty

 

If it's fine, I myself would just keep on chugging along

 

Batteries are consumable. You can take them into a shop and get a load charge done on them to ensure they are still up to the job.

 

Yeah I stand corrected. When recently battery shopping, I saw only a couple over 5 years. Definitely never saw 8 or lifetime warranties. Are the AGM the ones that come with those warranties?

 

Autozone used to warranty their "Gold" batteries for 7 or 8 years. It looks like they only do 5 now.

Interestingly the AGM at Autozone have a shorter warranty than the standard batteries and they don't even carry one for a 95 XJ.

If I were the OP, I'd just load test the battery at the local parts store and if it's not perfect, replace it and not feel guilty and if it tests fine, keep on keeping on.
Your battery can go at any time, even if it's brand new (and in fact, I'd prefer keeping the good old battery than risking putting an unproven new battery in), so you aught to keep cables and/or a booster in your car at all times regardless.

 

See...now this is where they can play computer games and it makes me mad... Of course they absolutely have one that will fit that. But because of the warranty they could claim misapplication if you use another application that would be the same. "Sorry, wrong application, no warranty."

This is very sound advice here. And something to keep in mind is that in cold weather a 5 year old battery will be toast if it goes dead just one time. It would kill it for good.

 

If you bring the battery to the store out of the vehicle, how can they claim misapplication?

 

i thought it was AutoZone that had the longer warranties as well. But the ones that one as referring to that had lifetimes, I don't even know the brands name off hand...we get a lot of differrent reprentatives that call in to the shop, or stop by with papers with details of their product and how we can become a dealer. There's been a few battery brands that have come in with lifetime warranties. We never get into them though because the owner of the shop has had interstate batteries the whole time, and we have a good relationship with them so they help us alot.

 

And that would be the way to do it... But their system will not let them finalize the sale and print out the warranty until they enter a vehicle make, model and year. And there is where they get you...

 

Go online and find the vehicles that fit and just choose one.