Battery, oil, temps

[TominMO]

I have discovered that the powersports battery in my Festiva B6 does not crank the motor over quite fast enough to start the car, at 20 degrees F and with 10W30 oil. The battery is only ~6 months old; CCA is listed at 325. At 30 deg F it cranks the motor over fine, and the car starts instantly. Today I changed the oil to 5W30. Tomorrow morning it will be 20 deg again; I will go out and crank it over, and let you know what happens. Next fall I will switch to full synth 0W30, to make sure the motor will spin fast enough in the winter.

My Aspire B3 is also running 10W30, but I have a skinny Honda car battery in there, also fairly new. CCA is listed as 650 @ 32 deg F, 500 @ 0 Deg F. It spins over pretty well at 20 deg; seemed to struggle a little. I will change it to 5W30 at next winter's oil change.

[ryanprins13]

Yes, 325 cca is not much. Basically a lawn mower battery. The 400 cca batteries that honda's come with dont last very long here. But lighter oil makes a big difference. My dad has a 1995 f-350 with the 7.3L and 2 batteries. With 15w40 and not plugging the truck in it wouldnt start around +5c. He switched to 0w40 and itl start down to -10 now without plugging it in but it cranks over way way faster at any lower temperature. Glow plugs dont work which is why the no-start problem.


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[blkfordsedan]

Yep, that's a pretty low amp battery. +20F is not really that cold. You should have a big enough Battery to spin a stock compression B3 or B6 with 10W-30 at that temp. I bought a new battery for my Festy 2 years ago. It was the proper group size to fit and the cheapest one that Autozone carries (I don't remember the CCA....maybe 425?). Before I could install it in the Festy, the battery in my wife's V8 Mountaineer went bad. I was short on money, so I just stuck it in her Mountaineer. That was 2 years ago, and it still starts her truck just fine (5.0L H.O. running 5w-30).....Last week it got down to -12F several nights with no cranking issues.

[TominMO]

Didn't get as cold as I'd hoped. 25 F/-4 C. Went out and started the Festiva up. Took about a second or less of cranking, then fired up with the 5W30.

Edit: Found this battery at Advance Auto, 385 CCA. With 0W30 synthetic, I would be confident this would do the job down to maybe 0 deg F/-32 deg C. Or close to it anyway. In a few years, I will replace my 325 CCA battery with this one.