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Frozen batteries


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Is there any hope for frozen batteries? Lately we have been dealing with fairly new units in college kids cars that got discharged over a couple weeks and froze. I'm tempted to defrost them in the shop and see if they'll take a charge, my tech says forget about it they are garbage. Apparently -26 degrees will freeze a battery with 12.2v. Did I mention I'm done with winter?

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You can bring them back to life and they 90% of the time be okay. warm them up slowly and charge them slowly. If you are hitting these temp you should look in to offering a winterization package. a block heater, battery trickle charger and engine oil pan heater all tied together with a 3 way that come out the front.

 

If you would like help let me know, I can get you set up and show you all the tricks.

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Welcome to life in Canada! (and Alaska, in John Pearson's case)

It also depends on how "deep" the battery is frozen.

A battery with 12.2-12.3v that freezes overnight or for a couple days should have no problem being thawed out indoors and trickle charged back to a decent life.

That same battery that has been frozen for a couple weeks has probably lost a significant portion of its life, even if you thaw it and charge it back to full, it may have lost a few years of it's life.

 

Freezing a battery damages it internally as the ice expands in the small gaps and can damage plates and loosen connections.

If it won't hold a charge after being thawed you're probably looking at a dead cell from a broken internal connection.

The case can also be cracked from ice expansion, which can cause a slow leak of battery acid.

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