Arggh! Issues with starting battery in winter - any solutions?

[basicxj]

A tight loop of tape, sticky side out, on the end of a folded coat hanger works well for retrieving lost fasteners..........

I have an inexpensive telescoping magnetic pick-up tool that has saved me a few times- only works with ferrous fasteners.

https://www.homedepot.ca/product/husky-magnetic-pick-up-tool/1001163195?eid=PS_GO_140203__ALL_PLA-526641&pid=1001163195&store=7045&eid=PS_GOOGLE_D00_Corporate_GGL_Shopping_All-Products_All+Products__PRODUCT_GROUP_pla-294357559827&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=1624814283&gbraid=0AAAAADhdmz6GssNYQb_vHcOKS0WzWTYAO&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIk4iu2q3NkgMV1AutBh0vxTytEAQYASABEgIhDPD_BwE

I have used a variation on your theme for plastic and non-ferrous by putting a loop of gaffer's tape on the end of my pickup tool (but you need a pretty straight shot for it to work).

 

[EOD Guy]

I have an inexpensive telescoping magnetic pick-up tool that has saved me a few times- only works with ferrous fasteners. I have used a variation on your theme for plastic and non-ferrous by putting a loop of gaffer's tape on the end of my pickup tool (but you need a pretty straight shot for it to work).

My pro tip: stretched out coat hanger with the one end, bending a 1/2" "L" where I can securely wrap the tape and the last layer of tape inverted with the sticky side out. Works almost everytime.....LOL

 

[basicxj]

My pro tip: stretched out coat hanger with the one end, bending a 1/2" "L" where I can securely wrap the tape and the last layer of tape inverted with the sticky side out. Works almost everytime.....LOL

It is pretty tough to find metal coat hangers these days in my area. I kept a stash for such occasions. They are pretty handy for making stands to attach small parts to for painting also

 

[Ugly Margarita]

-8 F this AM and the battery really considered mailing it in. Going for an oil change tomorrow, so I will get the battery tested.

 

[SHCKR]

I've now got the Odyssey battery in, I have the voltage sensor disconnected from the negative, I'm using an Optimate smart charger now and then, yesterday I drove 160 mi and last night I hooked up the Optimate and it showed that the battery was not fully charged, it only tells you whether it's fully charged, partially charged or near-dead under charged... But apparently driving 160 mi with the voltage sensor disconnected so that it would get the maximum 14.1v charge, still wasn't enough to keep the battery topped off. So it sounds like topping off from time to time with a trickle charger might be necessary in general. As for swapping the battery itself, what a massive pain, the biggest challenge was the small nut behind the battery, once I finally got that off I ended up losing it behind the battery, it fell deep and I could not find it. Luckily I don't have a rattle from that, but I replaced it with a wing nut, raised a little higher with a plastic bushing. The wing nut will be easier to get on and off by... hand no tools needed in that cramped area, and using nylon twine, I put a slip knot around one of the wings on the wing nut and had about a foot or two of slack and then tied it to something so I can never lose that nut down the same chasm. Lastly I put another wing nut on the negative terminal in place of the OEM nut, that way if I ever need to disconnect the negative, I can do it by hand with no tools needed. I believe the wing nuts were M8-1.25.

My Optima yellow top will be here on Wednesday, until then, the car is essentially dead. I'm trying to stay open minded, but is very disappointing to be going through this with a new vehicle.
And I just know if I went the way of the dealership instructing me to tow it to them, they would bitch about the hard wired dash cam and radar detector, even though they're both wired to accessory fuses, and only powered when the power is on...
I'll give the yellow top a try, probably with the voltage connector connected first, and if the trend continues, I'll unwire the accessories and go to the dealer.

 

[cozye]

For what it’s worth, my 2025 hasn’t had any battery issues thus far. We’ve just had the worst winter for a long time, truck sat in single digit temps for days without being used, no isssues. The cold snap lasted about 3 weeks with a foot of snow on the ground. I’m wondering if they haven't had a battery supply issue that perhaps affected certain batches of vehicles. Our LC has sat for 3 or 4 days without being moved a bunch this winter.

 

[basicxj]

There are a few variables beyond just battery batch- these vehicles sit at port for extended periods (North America) while various quality control procedures are performed and port-installed equipment occurs.

The dealer would ideally recharge the battery as part of PDI, but if the battery is severely discharged at port beyond 10V it will reduce battery capacity and battery life regardless of whether that battery is properly charged before being delivered to the customer.

 

[SHCKR]

For what it’s worth, my 2025 hasn’t had any battery issues thus far. We’ve just had the worst winter for a long time, truck sat in single digit temps for days without being used, no isssues. The cold snap lasted about 3 weeks with a foot of snow on the ground. I’m wondering if they haven't had a battery supply issue that perhaps affected certain batches of vehicles. Our LC has sat for 3 or 4 days without being moved a bunch this winter.

I think part of this issue for me was that about a week after I bought the car, before I was unaware of any battery issues, I kept the doors and back open for a few hours to install the dash cam (and backup battery), and a radar detector (both wired to accessory fuses).
Immediately after, a cold snap hit, and with the shitty charging infrastructure, it all compounded on itself

 

[SHCKR]

Alright, so the Optima arrived yesterday. Install was a breeze, took about 30 careful minutes. Could probably be about 10 if I was rushing.

Some notes:

1. Optima arrived somewhere above 75% state of charge, and took about 20 minutes to get to 100% with my (wait for it), $800 charger! (I had to Google that, it dropped in my lap 20 years ago.....)
2. Tools needed are a 10 and a 12 mm sockets, 12 mm deep well socket, a ratchet, and a 12mm wrench (optional).
3. Battery sizes are identical, and the bracket fits real well.

4. The OEM battery came out at 50% state of charge (this is with driving regularly over this week, for about 100 miles per day. It's been sitting on the same 20 AMP (FU Toyota with your 4-5 amp warning BS) charger for about 4 hours now, refusing to get to 100% - however the charger has not deemed the battery bad.... I'm hoping that confirms my previous post

EDIT: Took 5 hours but charger now shows 100% on OEM. I'm gonna box it up and throw it in the shed for potential warranty claim if the yellow top doesn't work out.

 

[basicxj]

^^ now for some voltage readings over time to see what state of charge the Land Cruiser maintains in that Optima (please)

 

[SHCKR]

^^ now for some voltage readings over time to see what state of charge the Land Cruiser maintains in that Optima (please)

Right.... So...... This is interesting.

Out of the box it was 12.89. After some time on the charger, it was 12.78.....
I didn't disconnect the charger leads on the second measurement, but the charger was turned off, I'm guessing that's why I have voltage loss. I wrote it off as a contact error.

 

[basicxj]

I am specifically asking about what level of charge/voltage reading you get when charged by the Land Cruiser in normal use over time.

It has been a while since I had an Optima battery. My last was 26 years ago, when I bought a lease return vehicle that had languished on the lot and no amount of charging was getting the OEM battery back to happy. I picked up a Red Top for a decent price at Costco. Little did I know that Red Top would still be going strong into 2010 when it simply wouldn't maintain a charge, in spite of being the heart of a robust aftermarket audio system. In my defence, I didn't use the Optima for key-off listening for any kind of extended period. I know there have been some changes in the Optimas since the year 2000 behind the scenes- country of origin, QC, price points etc.

When the time came to buy another stout battery for extra equipment, I got myself a Northstar AGM deep cycle based on some Optima backlash online. In a perfect world, I would have gone back to the vendor upon seeing it only showed 11.7V on install. It still started the vehicle when the OEM battery wouldn't at 12.03V. I would also have done regular maintenance charges with that one from new to coax maximum lifespan out of it- I only started doing that in the last year and a half I ran that battery. When it started to fail, I replaced it with an Odyssey Performance series AGM deep cycle and gave it regular top ups from new rather than primarily leaving it to the vehicle's charging system to maintain. I went larger with the Odyssey (had to remove a spacer from the battery tray and temporarily remove some emissions equipment near the tray to get it in and secured), and it was a beast. It read as high as 13.3V after an overnight charge and would maintain that voltage beyond 13.0V for weeks before parasitic drains from installed equipment would eventually show that voltage starting to drop. The routine I settled on was an overnight charge about once a month.

I am interested to see how your Optima Yellow Top holds up in the voltage department in use. I won't rule out buying the same battery you did, but my experience with the Odyssey is having me lean towards one of those (nominal extra cost).

 

[SHCKR]

I am specifically asking about what level of charge/voltage reading you get when charged by the Land Cruiser in normal use over time.

It has been a while since I had an Optima battery. My last was 26 years ago, when I bought a lease return vehicle that had languished on the lot and no amount of charging was getting the OEM battery back to happy. I picked up a Red Top for a decent price at Costco. Little did I know that Red Top would still be going strong into 2010 when it simply wouldn't maintain a charge, in spite of being the heart of a robust aftermarket audio system. In my defence, I didn't use the Optima for key-off listening for any kind of extended period. I know there have been some changes in the Optimas since the year 2000 behind the scenes- country of origin, QC, price points etc.

When the time came to buy another stout battery for extra equipment, I got myself a Northstar AGM deep cycle based on some Optima backlash online. In a perfect world, I would have gone back to the vendor upon seeing it only showed 11.7V on install. It still started the vehicle when the OEM battery wouldn't at 12.03V. I would also have done regular maintenance charges with that one from new to coax maximum lifespan out of it- I only started doing that in the last year and a half I ran that battery. When it started to fail, I replaced it with an Odyssey Performance series AGM deep cycle and gave it regular top ups from new rather than primarily leaving it to the vehicle's charging system to maintain. I went larger with the Odyssey (had to remove a spacer from the battery tray and temporarily remove some emissions equipment near the tray to get it in and secured), and it was a beast. It read as high as 13.3V after an overnight charge and would maintain that voltage beyond 13.0V for weeks before parasitic drains from installed equipment would eventually show that voltage starting to drop. The routine I settled on was an overnight charge about once a month.

I am interested to see how your Optima Yellow Top holds up in the voltage department in use. I won't rule out buying the same battery you did, but my experience with the Odyssey is having me lean towards one of those (nominal extra cost).

Yeah I saw your post about the Odyssey. I went with Optima because I have used them for many many years now, and never had one go bad. I do not, ever, want to have to plug in my car to "top off the battery". That is not what I signed up for when I bought this vehicle. My plan is to let Toyota do it's thing, and see if see if the Optima holds up. Don't care if it never reaches 100%, if it spends its life at 70% or whatever, but it still always starts the car, that's all I care about.
This might make some people cringe, but I came from a very high maintenance, heavily modified Audi, and I want the exact opposite with the LC. I want a set-and-forget reliable vehicle. So far I'm questioning my choices. Hoping this will alleviate this concern.

 

[SJR]

Right.... So...... This is interesting.

Out of the box it was 12.89. After some time on the charger, it was 12.78.....
I didn't disconnect the charger leads on the second measurement, but the charger was turned off, I'm guessing that's why I have voltage loss. I wrote it off as a contact error.View attachment 59691View attachment 59692

Check the new yellow Optima voltage next week after driving a few hundred miles. No top off charging.

 

[basicxj]

Yeah I saw your post about the Odyssey. I went with Optima because I have used them for many many years now, and never had one go bad. I do not, ever, want to have to plug in my car to "top off the battery". That is not what I signed up for when I bought this vehicle. My plan is to let Toyota do it's thing, and see if see if the Optima holds up. Don't care if it never reaches 100%, if it spends its life at 70% or whatever, but it still always starts the car, that's all I care about.
This might make some people cringe, but I came from a very high maintenance, heavily modified Audi, and I want the exact opposite with the LC. I want a set-and-forget reliable vehicle. So far I'm questioning my choices. Hoping this will alleviate this concern.

FWIW, the Red Top AGM starting battery that lasted me a decade was primarily charged by the vehicle's charging system- it only saw a charger in its last three months or so and at that point went downhill pretty fast. What hammered the nail in its coffin was the two way paging alarm it was running, and the fact that I had purchased a brand new daily driver that saw it sitting.

If I had to guess, I would bet the Optima might be more conducive to the use you describe than some of the other AGM deep cycle choices. I was hoping for some observations to back that up.

 

[SHCKR]

FWIW, the Red Top AGM starting battery that lasted me a decade was primarily charged by the vehicle's charging system- it only saw a charger in its last three months or so and at that point went downhill pretty fast. What hammered the nail in its coffin was the two way paging alarm it was running, and the fact that I had purchased a brand new daily driver that saw it sitting.

If I had to guess, I would bet the Optima might be more conducive to the use you describe than some of the other AGM deep cycle choices. I was hoping for some observations to back that up.

I'll measure it over the next few weeks. But I'm not sure it'll be a fair comparison without cold weather

 

[Mikie]

FYI -- I had bad results with the Optima... And have had EXCELLENT results with an Odyssey.

Reference my testing results in this forum post: Changing 12v Battery

 

[SHCKR]

FYI -- I had bad results with the Optima... And have had EXCELLENT results with an Odyssey.

Reference my testing results in this forum post: Changing 12v Battery

Yeah I saw, it the optima doesn't work out, I'll go with the Odyssey

 

[Skidaddl]

Just gonna chime in on this thread as I am also from Western Canada, so COLD is a way of life. Plus I've owned at least a half dozen Toyota's, including a 2007 Tundra with 600,000 km on it, that is still driven every few days. OP's issue (as he stated) was certainly due to a faulty battery.

Beyond that, it is completely asinine that anyone should need to install an aftermarket trickle charger in your vehicle unless you are only driving it very occasionally. All new vehicles in Western Canada (at least Alberta) come with a block heater installed, which should be sufficient, as long as you keep your battery up to date.

HOT TIP: I buy the Kirkland batteries from Costco, and they work great. They almost never last as long as the warranty, but Costco is very good at honouring warranties. This means that every few years, I change out my battery for a new one, and the cost is almost nothing because of the offset of the warranty coverage. Often the difference that I pay is basically the cost of inflation on the new battery vs. what I paid for the old one.

 

[basicxj]

If you go a little farther west (BC), no block heater comes standard. It would be a handy addition in northern BC, seeing as how the province stretches all the way to Alaska. With that said, I have owned a vehicle that came with a block heater and never had to actually use it.