long life of a battery

[martin418]

hows this , the battery on my morris std car and running a dynamo , i do about 2000 miles annually expired last week , its been on the car 10 years and was i thought fairly new when fitted {just one i grabbed from my battery collection } is in fact dated 04/2010 so most impressive , it was a ford unit and only a 360 ah . the dynamo is original 1955 unit charges just under 13v at idle and 13.8 when revved up , so all is good

[geoberni]

Pretty good, probably due to quality purchase/materials, light cranking requirements of the Minor and suitable charging conditions.
I changed the battery on my 2ltr 2010 Ford diesel after almost 13 years because it couldn't cope with doing 3 starts within around 5-6 minutes.
I was on my way out but did some stop-offs in the village before my intended 30 Mile trip. Had to call Mrs to come and give a jump start...

[philthehill]

In the 1970s when working at Stuart Turners garage at Blockley, Glos a Austin 7 was extracted from the old blacksmiths shop from behind a sealed door with a built wall in front of it and trees covering the entrance. You would not know that there was a double door there unless you looked very closely . The Austin had been sealed up for at least 40 years maybe even more. The garage was tasked with getting it ready for auction. The 6V battery a Lucas King Of the road was bone dry. We filled the battery with electrolyte and slow charged it and it came back to life. After servicing the Austin the battery was re-fitted and the Austin 7 started on the button and the battery never caused any further problems. The car was taken to the auction and sold for what would be considered a ridiculously low price. Back in the day no one wanted old cars.
Happy days.

[johnwick1]

That is actually really impressive. A battery lasting that long especially one dated all the way back to 2010 is so small feat. Sounds like it is been well taken care of, and the fact that your original 1955 dynamo is still working and putting out decent voltage is even more amazing. Goes to show that older gear, when maintained properly, can really stand the test of time.

[morris van]

I had a MG Midget which I restored and put on the road in January 1995 and I needed a battery and got one off a van that was going for scrap and the battery was not new when I put on my car and that battery lasted for about 23 years before it would not hold charge anymore.

[les]

These posts remind me of an old Monty Python sketch! ——- ending with ‘tell the kids that nowadays and they wouldn’t believe you’

[ManyMinors]

I still use the original battery from our 2006 Citroen on one of our Morris Minors. The Citroen was scrapped some years ago but the battery still lives on . It is a much larger and more powerful battery than the Morris requires of course, being designed to start a larger diesel engine, but it goes to show that a simple old Morris Minor with dynamo charging and regular care is not too demanding in that respect.