Battery won't hold a charge

[IL4Festiva]

My battery won't hold a charge, not from a charger, not from running HOT for 3 hours either, Am i out 80$ for sure, or is there a possible short or something somewhere?

[SimonTuffGuy]

Are there any interior lights that are left on that may be draining the battery? I know that's one of the most common things on cars. My brothers Neon kept killing his battery. It turned out that there was a light inside the glove compartment that wasn't going off and through the night, the battery would die.

If nothing like that... Is the alternator working properly? That is what keeps your battery charged. If you're not holding charge, it could be because of that.

I know that the auto stores here in the states (like AutoZone, NAPA, etc) have testing equipment that can tell you if your battery (or alternator, starter, etc) are in good working order. Most of them do the testing for free too.

[Damkid]

another thing is make sure the battery connections are cleaned up, dirty connections can cause a battery to not take a charge properly

[IL4Festiva]

what if the battery was newish and it worked fine until it died and sat for a while in the cold :S

[Festy46]

If you mean by cold, below freezing, and your battery was nearly dead or completely dead, it probably froze. If that happened your pretty much screwed and it's time for a new battery.

[jglutz]

Coulple of questions....
Does the head lamp brightness change as the engine RPM increase?
Is the 'CHARGE' idiot light on?
Is the Alt Belt tight?

A good test would be to measure the battery voltage while the engine is running...it should be 13.5 to 14.5 VDC. It should not change much as the engine RPM are increased.
When the engine is turned of the battrey volatge should be 12.4-12.6 VDC...no more...no less. If not...bad battery.

When measuring the voltage....be sure to hold the probes on the battery post....not the connectors. If the voltage is low when measured on the post and higher when measured on the connectors while the engine is running....the connections are dirty.

Any more, it is not common that a cell in a battery will go bad. Today the internal plates are more screen like than plate like and they will function better for the unit size; however, they tend to blow apart.

[freestiva]

Hey I dont know if you found the problem but take the battery out and have it tested somewhere it may just be a bad battery and if its newish its probably under a protection plan of some sort.