Wife's car battery died. Went to Auto Zone. (Pouring rain) Asked the guy to please use a trickle charge to hold the electronic settings. Of course he was in a hurry and "forgot"

Anyway he did not put the insulation (foam sleeve) back around the battery. Said you don't need it, it was just for cold weather.

Well insulation works both ways IMO. So does it also help prevent engine heat from heating the battery up even more??

It's always hot down here and heat kills batteries as much as cold I believe.

Searched around the interweb and it is one of those yes/no/maybe topics.

Should I put it back on?

What do you folks say??

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Still Running Against the Wind

I have three cars and two of them don't have any insulation sleeve around the battery. Never a problem, my batteries always last 4 to 5 years. I doubt where you live gets any hotter than Memphis, TN.

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LIVE FROM THE DAWGHOUSE

Heat does affect your battery. Out here in the desert three years is about what you get on one.

I toss them when I swap batteries. Have been doing this for years. I get about 5 years out of them. I'm sure it makes a difference in extreme temperatures but I've never lived in the Sahara or Antarctica.

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No doubt it gets sweltering in Memphis but it is not classified sub tropics. It gets hotter here for longer periods day and night.

Grow any Coconut or Royal Palms? , 200 miles North of me they will not grow, it's too cold

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Still Running Against the Wind

I have a chevy truck that stays in the basement (climate controlled), and it has a battery cover. I have three more trucks and a tractor that are either outside, or stay in the barn (not climate controlled), and they do not have battery covers. I get 5-7 years out of a battery in each of them. One doesn't last appreciably longer than the other.

During our hot summers here in Las Vegas, NV. I usually pop
the hood on my 2010 Toyota Tacoma after pulling into the
garage. This helps dissipate the heat from the engine compart-
ment. I replaced the original battery that came with the truck
after it was 5 years old. That's pretty good for Las Vegas!

I've never had a battery sleeve. In cold weather I put a light bulb or heater under the hood. And I have a starter/charger. They aren't very expensive.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Cold weather in South Carolina?!

What'd it do, drop below 60°?



On a serious note, what kind of cold do you experience? It seems like a heater under the hood wouldn't be necessary.

Here in NY, a good battery will start a car at -20°F without much trouble.

My retirement job is part time at an Advance Auto. I am the "oil & battery guy". Yes, the insulation will keep the battery a little cooler in the summer, but not for long enough to make a real world difference. It will still get just as hot or cold as the engine compartment in short order. Extreme cold and heat will have a negative effect on a battery, cold dropping voltage, and heat shortening its life.

What really makes a difference is keeping the battery on a trickle charger if it is not used regularly. A battery sulfates if not kept at the proper voltage, and all batteries lose voltage as they sit. Another issue is a voltage regulator that is not working properly, over charging the battery. This will also kill a battery over time. Discharging and recharging a non-deep cycle battery also has a negative effect on battery life.

Most of my riding buddies change motorcycle batteries every couple of years. I usually get 5 or 6 years out of mine. I store my bikes in a heated garage, and keep a trickle charger on them when not riding.

A word about battery chargers. Only use a low amperage (1, 1.5, 2 amp) trickle charger that is "automatic", in that it senses a full charge, and stops charging until it senses the voltage dropping. Lots of chargers are not automatic, and they keep charging until the battery acid literally boils. Not good. The high amperage chargers you see are for putting a quick charge in a dead battery, but unless closely monitored, at the expense of battery longevity.

Larry

GM (and other companies) are not in the habit of putting things on cars that aren't needed. Perhaps if you lived in San Diego, where the average temps are in the low 70's I'd agree with the brain surgeon that worked on it. Heat is actually worse for batteries than cold is.

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So many S&W's, so few funds!!

Ever have 26 days in a row over 100 degrees? 108 one day, 107 the next. 105 the next 4. Then throw in the humidity.

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LIVE FROM THE DAWGHOUSE

Thank you for the good laugh, I needed it after a long night!

I'm just imagining the severe cold seen in S.C. that requires a heater under the hood.

Tom S. beat me to the punch! I own two GM's and they both have the battery insulation sleeves. As Tom states, if it did not do anything I hardly think they would spend the money to put them on millions of vehicles.

I love it (NOT) when mechanics and technicians tell you "oh, you don't need that"! That just means they fudged up and are too lazy to re-do it the correct way.

When I was a kid, I worked a Summer in an Auto Glass Shop. We routinely replaced windshields and side window regulators. I can not tell you how many times some of the other guys would NOT replace the plastic vapor barrier that gets glued over the metal access ports of the car doors. I wonder how many people's cars got wet, rotted out and leaked air from those lazy repairmen!

Weather here in the Seattle area is moderate compared to other places. Have a 2011 Chevy with the original Delco battery. Still going strong. It only gets driven on weekends and has less than 30,000 miles on it.

I have no idea if the insulation makes a difference. But it seems to me that today's cars with smaller engines run hotter.

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Life Is A Gift. Defend it!

Yep. Despite living in the NE Pa does get hot and humid in the summer. Last summer. Last summer two straight months of near 100 degrees and 97% humidity

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Well.....yes and no. They put it in all cars because they don't know where each individual car will be going. Typically that stuff isn't needed but if you don't put it in the one car that goes to the North Pole you may have problems

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Must be a Volkswagen. I haven't seen anything official but I'm guessing Jettas need that insulator to keep from boiling the battery acid. They generate so much heat under the hood I'm surprised the paint stays on. Haven't seen the newer models but the older models had the radiator/fan off-set from center and didn't blow the heat away from the manifold very well. It relied on ground speed to circulate the heat away.

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Si vis pacem para bellum.

It's geography. We are closer to the equator.

But Tn is closer to the Sun at 337 ft elevation We are at 4 ft.

It does not snow here very often

Yearly average temps here iare much higher than Memphis

But this is all non sequitur

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Still Running Against the Wind

The insulator is not to keep the heat out, Its to keep the heat in. The newer battery's are made different for the old lead aced battery's of yesteryear. These are sealed no maintenance and the plates are made of a combination of lead with other materials. In order to charge them correctly and fully, they need heat. In cold weather they need to generate this heat from the high amp rate of charge to properly charge them. This doesn't present a factor in many states but the manufacture's don't know where the vehicles will be sold so the equip all of the battery's with the blanket. So, I would advise if you live in cold or freezing climate, replace the blanket. My .2 cents.

I'm in the car transport business. Manufacturers build cars and store them. After a certain amount is ready they ship the cars to holding facilities in different parts of the country. One facility may cover many bordering states
They then get an order for X amount from a dealer in whatever state. But as it's built they don't know where it's going. Also dealers swap cars all over the country, so much so that we do biweekly runs from PA/NJ to WA state.

I'm not saying they're completely clueless but the storage facility in Newark NJ may cover DC to Maine.

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Bet you get a pretty decent ocean breeze too. Our breeze comes from Texas and Oklahoma and unlike the ocean the Mississippi River doesn't cool it.

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LIVE FROM THE DAWGHOUSE

My opinion, and mine only, is that a mfg will add a part that cost 5 bucks on everything they can, so they can charge an additional 100.00 bucks for the 5 dollar part.

I thought you were moving up to the redneck Riviera?

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I’m your Boogie Man, uh huh.

The temp between the two locations is not the subject.

But if you want to believe than so be it.

Right now it is 92 and 54% humidity here

Memphis is 83 and 35% humidity.

So lets just leave it OK.

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Still Running Against the Wind

It's for keeping engine from heat-soaking battery.

On cars without sleeves, you'll see a lot of poly 'fences',
to isolate the battery, somewhat, from engine compartment heat.

Heat kills lead acid batteries faster than sub-zero temps.

Whether the sleeve works or not isn't the point: If it was on the car when it came in, it should be on the car when it leaves, unless you specifically told the shop to make any improvements or remove any parts they felt like w/o checking with you first.


I read an article from an industry insider, at one point talking about what they choose to build cars with, and he said a manufacturer would sell their grandmother to avoid adding a five cent part.

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TEAM DNF

Every car in Butte Montana still has theirs.

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Front sight and squeeze

At anything colder than -10F, I plug in the block heater.

If you have a trunk, have a qualified individual mount battery there. I've had for years a vented plastic battery case I got from an old car repairman.
Battery in rear is sealed by trunk from hot cold and elements better than under hood. All my batteries seemed to go 5-6 years shielded from the underhand exposure

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All I can add is my personal experience for what it's worth.
My wife had a '95 Saturn that needed a new battery about every 12 months. The battery was enclosed in a plastic box. After going through several batteries, on a hunch I did not replace the plastic box when installing a new battery. The battery lasted at least three years this way. From then on, no box = much longer battery life.

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You're shy a few manners.

Absolutely fascinating thread! Batteries are much like guns it seems. Keep the box? Throw away the box?
or maybe....just maybe........JACK IN THE BOX!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bwahahaha...............................

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Forum consigliere

It's gotten down the 13 deg F here at night. The thing is that kind of weather doesn't go on long and maybe a couple of time/syear. With the way the climate is changing though, we don't know what to expect. We had a few cold days this year.

To me getting a quality battery is the key. Trouble is, the big box stores sell batteries that are perfectly timed to fail. Even specialized shops sell batteries that I don't like.

I can get a Diehard around here, but AC/Delco or Exide is hard to find and usually when you need a car battery, you can't spend a lot of time looking for one. And I don't know where the Diehards are going to be after Sears pulls out.

Way back when (I say that a lot) you could nurse a battery along for a while with a charger but since you knew it was failing, you could arrange to get it replaced. Usually it was a cold day that would kill them. Today's batteries are only timed go so far then they die and that's it,

Anyway, I hate the sound of nuh.. nuh.. nuh.... nuh...................click click click click.

Everybody has a different situation in their locale. If I lived in Tuscon or Fargo I'd approach it differently.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

PM me about a month from now.

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LIVE FROM THE DAWGHOUSE

Stop using 12 volt lantern batteries in your car.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

And in August, Sept, Oct and Nov

You win, it is hotter in Tn than in Fl.

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Still Running Against the Wind

Wow, you seem to really believe this!

LMBO!

I spent a good deal of the 80s in the panhandle playing golf, no way does it get hotter down there in the summer.

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LIVE FROM THE DAWGHOUSE

Ha ha. They were top of the line batteries for top of the line prices. That little Saturn just cooked them. The engine compartment got hotter than the Devil's house. At least with that damned plastic cover removed, they lasted 3 years instead of only one.

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You're shy a few manners.

C'mon fellas, geez..........
Fla. don't get near as hot as some places,
I'll PM the both of you the two weeks in Jan. it can't hit 90.

I'm not going to worry about burning up my batteries in Tuscon. That two days I spent there was enough for a lifetime. It might be 'dry heat' but it's dry like being in the outlet of a hair dryer. JEEZ1


It's a story that has been told, but I completely monkeyed out at the Pima Air Museum.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Here in the Temperate Zone I've never seen the sleeve used. In fact I had no idea what the OP was about. We can get to minus 20 degrees or plus 105, but those fortunately are rarities.

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Oh well, what the hell.

I just put some on mine Thursday-for the first time. Guess "we'll" know in about 5 years whether or not they work as planned.

When people tell me it's a dry heat, I tell them so is a pizza oven.

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Can open, worms everywhere.

Never had a car with a battery sleeve. Is this something new?

This is the first time I have ever heard of a battery sleeve!
What's next, socks on fan blades?
Steve W

where I live we get the cold temps in the winter and it can get into the upper ninety and 100s for a couple weeks. I don't have a problem with batteries, I trade in my trucks after 3 years.

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Carpriver.