'02 Maxima Repeated Battery Failure

[starboomer]

Our '02 maxima has just had it's 4th battery replacement in 2 years. Each time the dealership tows it and states it is a bad battery cell. They state the alternator and starter tests are ok. What could be making a battery cell to go bad every 6 months? Thanks for your help

[Nahkapohjola]

Originally Posted by starboomer

Our '02 maxima has just had it's 4th battery replacement in 2 years. Each time the dealership tows it and states it is a bad battery cell. They state the alternator and starter tests are ok. What could be making a battery cell to go bad every 6 months? Thanks for your help

I suspect your voltage regulator is bad. Buy 10$ digital multimeter and verify yourself the voltage at batt terminals. Should not be above 14.5V DC, none AC. Regulator (inside the alternator) and or grounding could also be intermittently bad.

(If one alternator diode fails, it will start to give half modulated alternating current for your car & batt. That will kill the batt. When measung this with DC -scale on the dmm, mechs will never see any problem. You must have competent electronics mech to verify this condition---> typically nonexistent on the globe...)

For such reasons I always install voltage gauge [2.] on any car I've got: nromally the readings start to show fluctuation before total failure.


.................................................. .................................

I dont want to go for a trip with such a car, but repair this in advance...




.

Problem with older cars (might be also yours) is the alternator is not well grounded. Stealership mechs have absolutely no understanding of this: extra ground wire (50cents) will take this battery killer condition off. See my web page for that...


.

[starboomer]

An update! We did contact Nissan on Friday April 29th. Got the case
number. The dealership contacted the area rep as well. On Thursday May 5
the dealership called to notify us that the area rep had decided not to
start throwing parts on it since they can't duplicate or find a problem.

Area rep advised us to ensure that we check the battery often and ensure it
has water in it as that could cause the batteries to be going dead. Give
me a break. With this decision they referred us back to Nissan.

We called Nissan Rep on Friday May 6 and our call was unreturned. Called
them on Monday May 9 and no return call so at 4:30 we called and asked to
speak to Nissan Rep supervisor. We had to leave a mssg. and were advised
that someone would contact us within 8 business hrs. About a half hour
later the Nissan Rep called. She said she would call dealership and
someone would contact us Tuesday. Dealership called on Tuesday May 10th
and said that Nissan Rep was going to talk with the area rep and the
dealership op. mgr. to get an ok for an engineer to get involved.

This is our 6th nissan since 1986. We had 5 good ones and now this one.
We are grateful for this as their response to this situation has been poor.
We hope to get this one repaired but doubt we will ever own another after
how this is being handled. We are in the same place we were 12 days ago
when we filed a claim with Nissan.