Peter, I’m the guy in Alaska , and batteries are very important here lol,,,,,,,I ordered that battery tester off Amazon, got it Friday, $25 ,,,,,,,,Thanks I love it.
We have 2000 sienna with 314,000 miles, great van ! Very few problems over the years! 3.0 is a great engine ! We bought it new, no ac problems or heater except ac rechage. Has original starter,alternatòr, fuel pump. If i could buy a brand new one i would buy another !!
Vehicle owners should know that a battery connection that isn't both tight and clean can shorten the life of their battery. It can also shorten the life of the alternator by increasing the resistance in the charging circuit. Hang in there, Peter. It will warm up a bit in another month. It could be worse. One day I walked outside to pick up my mail, about a 60 foot walk. As I was reaching into the mailbox I heard a strange noise coming from my left. I looked left and saw a wall of rain a couple of blocks away. When you can hear the raindrops hitting stuff 500 feet away, that is rain. One Friday night, nearly a foot of rain fell in 3 hours.
I'm a HUGE fan of Toyotas, I've had many of them and they were all very good vehicles (I have 4 right now) but my Sienna was the worst of the bunch. Both of my Previas outlived the 2001 Sienna I had by a country mile, in fact I still have both of my Previas (a 93 DX and a 96 LE SC) both have well over 235k miles and run great. I hear great things about this era of Sienna but mine was absolutely terrible...didn't even make it to 110k miles without many many issues (bad ECM, ABS pump failure, both sliding doors broke internally, leaked everywhere). Maybe I got one built on a Friday afternoon lol
Battery corrosion protector, hehehe , for the past 50 years, all we ever used was Vaseline and it works good especially in boats. When in the military we even used it on aircraft batters and they are24 volts
Autometer? I thought it was odometer? Peter is the man. Very helpful with his detailed explanation of all things Toyota :). I still can remember the day when he threw his Subaru flag in the garage:(. All good I'm keeping up with my maintenance on my 11 Sienna and 09 Forester with Peter helpful knowledge.
I had a 2003 xle abd it was the best vehicle i have ever owned. I really miss this van. Was the perfect size and was extremely comfortable. I with i could buy another one, new.. This one is mint.
Sometimes the door ajar light on the dash can drain the battery. This happened to my old Sienna. One of my sliding door didn't fully latched and it was draining the battery.
My father in law had a "ghost draw”: older Expedition, rear cargo interior light burnt out. The light was left in the On position. So no light, no indication light was on but battery kept draining. Took several recharges of the battery to figure out what was drawing the battery down.
Thank you Peter Amazing as it appears that this Sienna has 207K miles, looks fantastic. Alternator was definitely replaced as it looks shinny. Was curious for you to open the top of the battery to check the fluid to see if they were low or maybe some empty. I also would have thought that you would install a green Interstate Battery as the good models have nice warranties on them.
Most batteries these days are sealed. No more adding water. There was probably some pro-rata credit available on the Costco battery. The problem is that Costco only sells/exchanges batteries, they do not service (take in and out) them. The owner likely decided to avoid that hassle and just let Peter take care of it.
We had a Subaru which had a parasitic circuit. It turned out to be the CD changer which tried to load a CD about every 15 -20 minutes, even when the car was shut off. The new battery would drain in a matter of several days to a week. It took hours to find the problem since most of the time the circuit wasn't pulling any amps, the current only spiked when trying to load a CD. We ended up pulling that fuse.
Good music but a little sleepy for road travel. From the same era I would be listening to maybe Tres Hombres by ZZ Top. Much more perky to keep you awake behind the wheel. 😄
I wonder if that loose negative terminal meant the battery wasn't being fully charged or it was just the age of the battery that caused the failure. Of course not using it was the primary cause.
This is why I no longer use Interstate Batteries, they suck. I have had two die on me where the batteries had a dead cell or two and would not get to a full charge. I'm sorry but if manufacturers can't design a battery to last at least five years, then it is a piss poor design. Most of it is they are probably made that way purposely, so they fail early, and you have to buy a new one. Unless they have improved their quality recently, I won't be buying any in the future. I didn't change the original Motorcraft battery in my 98 F-150 until about November of 2007. I noticed the engine cranking slower and found it dropping to 9 volts so it was getting ready to fail. That battery most likely was 10 years old. I looked online and it says Interstate are now made by Exide so that explains a lot.
I had same problem with my interstate from costco. Only lasted 2 years, then got a bad cell. Luckily costco had 3 year replacement for free. However i would rather have a quality battery that lasts, i'm disappointed with interstate as well.
I wish Panasonic brand batteries were available i the US. Years ago the Japan built Toyotas used this as original equipment and they lasted a long time.