Fall Maintence Reminder!

[Marty Lau]

Yesterday I rotated my batteries. I have been told by a very sharp techincal type that if you rotate dual battries at least every year the life of the set will improve. It's worth a try and since every time I've replaced the battries one was good (drivers side) and other was toast, made sense to me. ;)

[Cowracer]

I tried rotating them one time, but when I did, all the acid ran out. Made for real hard starts.

:D

Tim

P.S. Pay no attention to me. I "am ate-up with the dumba$$" today

[Craig M]

The 12 volt batteries are electrically connected. There physical location should have no bearing on their capacities or life. I do not see how "changing" batteries can do anything helpfull.

[JoeyD]

Rotating should do nothing for the life of them. They are not isolated at all.

[Dvldog 8793]

Howdy
The only factor for rotation improveing the life of the battery would be if certain PHYSICAL properties of one location were different than the other. More vibration, more heat(turbo side), ect....
The only other factor would be amperage draw difference per battery due to longer cables also voltage loss of the chargeing current due cable length. Both of those factor would probably be negligiable. I went with optima red tops and they have by far been the best batteries I have ever seen.
L8r
Conley

[Marty Lau]

What I was told by a guy that is A&P/AI, it is standard to rotate battries in aircraft to increase life because because what he told me is one battery will alsways carry more load because the restance in never the same in a dual battery situation. So I rotate the batteries since I bought this set because. 1. The guy who told me is sharper than a whole pack of razor blades and I have trusted him with my life for many years.
2. Before doing this every time I have changed batties the same one dies, I replace the pair and use the other for other things for several more years. So, it makes sense to me. Think what you want, but I'm gonna do it cause Mikey says it's good to do. ;)

[trbankii]

Although I don't have the "tech" to back it up, I'd agree with 16ga's reasoning. My grandfather always told me to rotate flashlight batteries and it does seem that one will always die before the others. I cannot see how this would hurt things and it would also get you to clean your battery terminals at least once a year!

[G. Gearloose]

**** that, I'd rather go fishing.

Too much of my life is already wasted cleaning, raking, rotating, draining, mowing, lubricating, painting and repairing.

[DmaxMaverick]

Although I don't disagree with anything above, rotating may not be so beneficial.

A long battery pair life is no good once you bust off a lug. Every time you remove/replace a connector, you take the chance of damaging the lug. Just went through that yesterday. Had to disconnect a battery to do some other maintenance, and ruined a good battery when the lug broke, and starting leaking. $300 later (Optima yellow tops), and all should be good for the next 10 years, as long as a lug doesn't break. The batteries I replaced were the original OEM's, and almost 5 years old.

This is not specific to side terminal batteries. Although top post batteries are less likely to break, they do, and will start to leak early in their life.

If you intend to rotate your batteries, install another method of disconnecting them. Torquing on the lugs/posts is a bad thing waiting to happen.

[markrinker]

Another benefit of rotating (although I have NEVER done it...) would be that you are annually cleaning the terminal connections.