Lithium ion batteries for the viper

[Snake Rider]

I have been having nothing but problems with the batteries in my 2000 viper. I have gone through at least 8 batteries in the last 4 years. The dealer takes it in and performs all the tests but they find nothing wrong. Luckily most of the batteries have been on warranty but I am real tired of having battery problems when I want to use the car.

Has anyone heard of or tried these lithium ion batteries? http://www.reli-ionbatteries.com/automotive/

They have a never die system that turns off the battery so that it never drains completely and enough reserve to get your car started.

I believe they run about three times the price of a regular battery but if they work I think it will be well worth it.

[Viktimize]

Have you tried putting an amp clamp on your cables when the car is off to see if you have a parasitic draw somewhere? After 8 batteries I have a hard time believing it is an issue with getting bad batteries. If you don't drive the car for weeks/months at a time, then it is just fact of life that you need to put a tender on it between drives. Perhaps that is your issue?

[Snake Rider]

I know its not the batteries, something is killing them. They did a draw test and said it was within specs. I always keep a ctek battery tender on it but it seems to only kinda work. This battery was replaced last fall kept a tender on it all winter. Today for example I new I was going out so I took the tender off but didn't try to start it for about an hour. When I tried it barely turned over.

No one seems to know what the problem is so its getting to the point where the power must be disconnected every time I drive it. These batteries will do that automatically when they detect that they battery voltage is dropping when it shouldn't be. Then you simply hit a button on the battery to reactivate them. In cases like the viper where you cant get to the battery easily they come with a little remote to reactivate them.

[ViperPete]

You probably have bad grounds.

Bad grounds mean the ones that are working are heating up and sucking up all the juice.

Check your grounds. Check your power cable from the battery to the starter. Check your engine grounds.... check your grounds! All of them!

[Snake Rider]

Well I will mention that to the dealer as they are taking it in on Wednesday. They are warrantying it as they tried to fix it last fall and their repairs are covered by the year warranty.

[Snake Rider]

Still curious if anyone has heard anything about them? I guess they only weigh 14 pounds.

[TrackAire]

Still curious if anyone has heard anything about them? I guess they only weigh 14 pounds.

At the end of the day it is still just a battery so I would same my money and make sure the parasitic drain (or whatever the issue is) gets fixed first and that a normal battery holds a charge correctly. Also, you may want to try a new C-tek or equivalent battery tender as the one you have may be defective and is actually damaging your battery. If it is over charging the battery, it will destroy it's reserve charging capacity.

Lastly, if and when you go to the lithium ion type battery, be sure to use a battery maintainer designed for lithium ion batteries.

If you need to save weight because this is a hard core track car, LI's make sense. If it is primarily a street car, save your money.....I use an Odyssey PC680 in my V8 Mustang track car and it works great and weighs around 16 lbs IIRC. A big V10 and or thumping stereo system might require more starting amps and reserve capacity.

I own two C-Teks and picked up 4 more of these (the newest version even has lithium ion battery capability). Had them for over 12 months and they seem to really be pretty damn good (I take periodic checks with a digital meter to monitor the batteries and their voltage readings).

http://www.geniuschargers.com/G1100

[EZ 2B Green]

I think your best option is to find the battery drain problem with the car. Lithium batteries are not suited for parasitic loads. Even if the battery has a failsafe feature, it is not meant to be relied on regularly. It's most likely intended for the rare occasion when a load is left on.

[braunstein82]

A friend of mine in Clearwater Fl owns a company making lithium batterys. I messaged him to see if he can give some input on his brand. His website is www.smartbattery.com

[Matt M, Pa]

While I can't comment on how a lithium battery would work for the OP's issue...I can report that I just put a new battery in my '96 RT. I went with a Deka Intimidator AGM. Fit great and won't leak.

My '72 Plymouth has an AGM battery that looks like an old Mopar battery and the only downside I found was that my battery maintainers weren't working with this type of battery. (Despite the manufacturer saying they would.)

I got a maintainer by Pulsetech that "pulses". The maker says this helps remove or prevent sulfate build up in the battery.

Perhaps you may want to consider a new maintainer? How long does it take for your battery to drain down?

[labtec]

Did the dealer check the battery with the door locks engaged and security system on? Are there any aftermarket add-on's? Also what ViperPete said, grounds, check them all.....not just the ones that are easy to reach. As mentioned use a good tender with mode indicators. Mine is a Stanley that show when charging, full, etc.

[SSGNRDZ_28]

To answer you original question these are the batteries that the new Nissan LMP1 car is using, although they've excluded the circuitry you are asking about for that application. As far as I know they have been reliable other than when they've run them too low (due to the excluded circuitry).

Here is another supplier I would consider: http://lithiumpros.com/product-categ...teries-racing/

As already mentioned... Lithium batteries themselves are actually more sensitive to voltage levels and the low voltage cutoff circuitry is absolutely required to keep them from failing when they drain too low. AGM batteries are far more forgiving. If the Lithium is killed it is much more expensive to replace. I would try hard to find a solution to the root cause of this issue. Also have you checked your charger or tried another? It seems quite a bit of current would need to be pulled to outrun the charger.

[Steve M]

Sounds like it is time to do a key off battery drain test...it's a bit tedious, but you need to figure out which circuit is causing your battery to drain. If you don't know how to do this, a quick Google search should get you going in the right direction.

Quick story: my old Camaro used to drain the battery after it sat for about 2-3 days without being started. This became an issue because I used to travel a lot for work, and kept coming back to a dead car at the airport...that isn't much fun when your flight gets in around 11PM. It got bad enough that I bought and carried around my own portable jump starter battery pack. I had finally had enough one weekend, and decided to do the test mentioned above. I went through each circuit one at a time until I finally pulled a fuse that stopped the drain dead in its tracks. I did some investigating, and it turned out that that circuit provided power to the OBD-II port. This didn't make much sense until I realized that I had been leaving a device plugged in to the diagnostic port - that device was pulling about 15mA all by itself. Not enough to drain a battery overnight, but enough that it would after sitting for a few days.

Moral of said story: you need to figure out the root cause. Tossing money at a very expensive battery is only going to leave you with a dead, very expensive battery if you don't figure out what's behind this.

[Snake Rider]

Trust me there is nothing I would like more than to find out the root cause. I have thrown thousands of dollars at this problem already and if that expensive battery would work I would be happy. We don't even want to drive the car anymore because of the chance it will all of a sudden leave us stranded, it has happened many times. drive it, go in for lunch, come out ant it wont start. I am almost ready to get out a viper because of this. I have had it in to many shops to see many and multiple viper techs. They all tell me they cant find anything wrong, we all know something is wrong. Its gotten to the point where they want to install a battery shut off switch.

No aftermarket add ons and have tried different chargers

A few months after a new battery I can do a draw draw test and the battery is reading about 8 volts

I will mention the above suggestions to the tech and I sure hope it one of those

I just need to resort to something so I can enjoy my car

[Steve M]

If you have a simple multimeter with a 10A fused side to measure current, you can do a key off battery drain test yourself. The reason why a tech won't want to do this is because it takes time, and time costs them money. IMO, this is something you'd be better off doing yourself.

[XSnake]

Contact Gary at Braille. 941-312-5047 He spent quite a bit of time with me on the phone going over options for my X. Very helpful

[TrackAire]

Trust me there is nothing I would like more than to find out the root cause. I have thrown thousands of dollars at this problem already and if that expensive battery would work I would be happy. We don't even want to drive the car anymore because of the chance it will all of a sudden leave us stranded, it has happened many times. drive it, go in for lunch, come out ant it wont start. I am almost ready to get out a viper because of this. I have had it in to many shops to see many and multiple viper techs. They all tell me they cant find anything wrong, we all know something is wrong. Its gotten to the point where they want to install a battery shut off switch.

No aftermarket add ons and have tried different chargers

A few months after a new battery I can do a draw draw test and the battery is reading about 8 volts

I will mention the above suggestions to the tech and I sure hope it one of those

I just need to resort to something so I can enjoy my car

Wow, if it is dropping to 8 volts, you have a very substantial battery drain. Any time your battery goes below 10.5 volts, it is getting damaged and will not hold a charge correctly....the more times you do this, the more the battery loses its reserve capacity no matter how well you re-charge it.

I'm not sure a Dodge dealer tech is the person to go to....I would probably look for a company that specializes in vehicle electric repair, wiring etc if you don't want to tackle this yourself. With the amp draw you have, you'd even be able to see a reading with a clamp on DC amp meter (Like a Fluke 375 or equivalent).

At this point, the last thing you need is a lithium ion battery as it will fail just as bad as what you've already been using.

Good luck, shouldn't be hard to find a draw this big.

[C.J]

I know its not the batteries, something is killing them. They did a draw test and said it was within specs. I always keep a ctek battery tender on it but it seems to only kinda work. This battery was replaced last fall kept a tender on it all winter. ...

How are you connecting your battery tender to your Viper? Cigar lighter plug, connect to positive/negative terminals under hood, harness directly to battery, etc?