Do you need to charge a battery before it can be tested??

Bought a battery last year and with the cold weather over the last week thecar has been reluctant to start and the radio needs the code.

Checked the alt, earths etc and all good.

Took it back to the shop to be tested (3 Year Warranty) and he said he wont test it until it has been on a battery charger for 12 hours.

Is this b*ll*cks? Surely if I take in a newly charged battery it wont show as dead straight away?

Thanks in advance!

yup, it has to be over a certain charge to run the tests. most of the tools won't run until it is.

even when fully charged, if they do a load test it will show as dud if it is

Would they not need to test the battery first though to see that?

The thing that annoys me though is they didn't say this process needed to be followed when the old battery was tested!

They just put the tester on and said yeah you need a new one!

s0ftmick said:

Would they not need to test the battery first though to see that?

The thing that annoys me though is they didn't say this process needed to be followed when the old battery was tested!

They just put the tester on and said yeah you need a new one!

Click to expand...

haha, yeah they just wanted a sale.

afaik, old school load test needs a recharged battery.

new computer style testers don't need it to be fully recharged, but they do need it over a certain amount.

but you need to check your alternator to make sure that wasn't the cause of your dead battery. stick a multimeter on the battery or a test lamp

To had the much a similar issue when I returned a battery that was faulty and only had a month left in the 3year warranty, they looked at the battery all over, looked at me, did a test, looked at me again looked at the battery all over again, and then agreed that it was faulty and then gave me a replacement.

So with your battery now at home no doubt and put it on charge over night take it back.
What ever is the outcome is get yourself an alternator tester to check there is an output from it.