In article ,
Andrew Gabriel wrote:
I'd say they design the separators to self destruct at this age.

Not my experience. My last two cars were Fords brought new, and
neither has needed a new battery in the 8 years I kept them
(ignoring one which needed a new battery after 2 days because
it had been dropped and the acid drained out through a crack).

Perhaps it depends on car use? My commute is pretty short by most
standards - only about 3 miles. In the morning it tends to be a quick
journey being before rush hour, but slower in the evening. However, it's
certainly long enough to keep the battery charged.

However, when the Rover was the main car I was doing a much longer commute
- about 10 miles. But 3 years was again the average.

Battery life could easily be affected by the quality of alternator
used. Long after most cars had switched from dynamos to alternators,
some 20 years ago Citroens were using a funny hybrid -- an alternator
without the semiconductor voltage regulation, with an external dynamo
relay control box. Those went through car batteries quite fast,
probably due to crappy charging voltage regulation.

I built a solid state regulator for my last dynamo equipped car - an
Austin 1800 - and that worked well.

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*A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

Dave Plowman London SW
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