Hyundai Factory Battery Life

A member of list posted a question about "Engine Won't Start", and received
many replies about replacing the battery. The car is a 2003, which prompts
me to ask; how long should a Hyundai factory battery last? I have owned
Honda and Toyota, and the factory battery would last 3-4 years.

 

Mine spontaneously died after a little over a year.

 

It appears that they're only good for a year or two on average. It will
depend on the climate, how you drive, whether you ever run the battery
down and how well you maintain the battery.

Running the batter flat and failure to check and correct fluid levels
are the two biggest killers of batteries. Since newer Hyundai models
have lights that turn off with the key, the former should not be much of
a problem. Check you fluid levels every few months and top off where
necessary with DISTILLED or DEIONIZED water ONLY. The minerals in tap
water will kill a battery.

 

I have a 2002 Sonata and the battery lasted less than 2 years.

Daryl

 

I only got 1.5 years from my original battery in my Santa Fe.
OEM batteries usually suck.

 

Which leads to my question, will Hyuhdai replace the OEM battery with
a higher quality name brand one? Or do they just stick another crappy
one in?

J.W.

 

If you check back about a month, there are posts regarding my battery
issues - both the OEM AND replacement battery lasted about a year - and the
replacement only 19 days(?) over its one year warranty. My service writer
said and Hyundaitech confirmed that Hyundai has since moved over to
Interstate as their OEM battery supplier. Hoefully this will be an
improvement. I'll let you know next May when the battery is due to fail...
-B

 

I bought my 2000 Sontata in Sept 2000. Battery died in Oct 2001. That battery
died this past week. Batteries don't last long in hot Texas weather.

Steve

 

My 2000 Elantra battery lasted 3.5 years.

 

I'm still using the original battery on my June 2001 Elantra, so just over
3 years with no apparent issues. We'll see how it does this winter. Of
course, with the auto-headlight off feature* I've never run the battery
down. I have left either the dome or map lights on overnight before, but
it always still started with no issues, so I can't count it as a full
drain.

Just my data point.
Ben



*there have been maybe 2 occassions where I wished you could turn the
lights back on without the key in the ignition. My choice would be that
the lights would turn off when the key is removed, but if you flipped the
lights off then back on, they'd come on again.
The situations mentioned above are rare though, I was helping friends
change tires/fix cars in the dark, and needed my keys to go open my
toolbox, which killed the headlights. Not exactly a common occassion,
admittedly.

 

I bought my Hyundai Tiburon GT in March of 2003. The battery problems
occured the beginning of this month (August 2004). So that's a about
1.5 years. I do know that the vehicle was sitting in the dealer lot
for about 6 months prior to my purchase. Still, I was pretty
surprised to learn that my battery would run into problems that soon.
To my understanding though, extremely hot weather, as it has been
recently in Southern California, can decrease the typical battery life
down to two years or less. It was a good thing my battery was still
under the two year warranty =). They even replaced the battery with a
higher CCA (700 new versus 600 old). Worked out well for me--in
addition to doing the recent fuel valve recall fix.

John

 

I had a 2000 Elantra Wagon and had the original battery in it when I traded
it in on a 2004 Elantra GT in Januray of this year.

Pete....

 

i sill have the original bettery in my 93 excel, and im hard on it, -40
dregree starts and a 500 W amp.

I dont know how its lasted so long, but im quite surprised, alex

 

Replace it. Do you enjoy getting stuck?


*-------------------------------*
NEVER FORGET!!!
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/us/0109/missing/files/toyen.amy.html

 

The battery in my 1997 Accent lasted 6 years. Pretty good considering the
cold winter conditions here in Norway...

-Oivind-