Five Star Batteries

This will always depend if the battery is the correct choice for the particular application it has been fitted to. This will also depend on many other influences – see below.

A correct fit for the application & regular usage – the majority of batteries do not perform well or at all after long periods of non-usage.
Malfunctioning alternators and/or regulators can shorten the service life of a battery by either undercharging or overcharging.
Leaving lights or other electrical consumers on for long periods (over night) when the car is not in use can discharge a battery to a lower state of capacity from which it never fully recovers – this is not the fault of a battery but misuse.
It is possible for a vehicle to have an electrical drain, sometimes very small and often difficult to see or detect. As a result this too will drain the battery, discharges and reduces capacity and therefore its service life. An example of this could be an intermittent faulty light, i.e a light in a glove box flickering on and off for a prolonged time.

This is down to the customer’s choice. However, some Vehicle Manufacturers have stated that as cars have become more sophisticated and more demanding of a battery with increased electrical extras fitted to them, then surely the battery also needs to be more sophisticated than those of at least 10 years ago.
A battery that copes better under higher voltage rates on modern cars and that can provide the power for all the fancy electrical consumers, should offer a longer service life and real value for money.

Yes, all batteries sold by Five Star carry a warranty period, the length of which is dependent on the type of battery for its use.
ALL batteries are guaranteed against manufacturing defects. This is the agreement that Five Star has with its manufacture suppliers. What this means is, if the battery is proven to have a defect from manufacturing it will be replaced under warranty (proof of purchase required). Manufacturing faults are generally found in the following areas:

Bad Cells (Cell short circuit) – if a battery has a Faulty Cell it will usually happen quite early in its service life – this is quite rare.A simple voltage check usually can detect a Faulty or Bad Cell.
Damaged or leaking casing – These faults are extremely rare but can happen mainly from damage in delivery or if dropped. If damaged in delivery, these will be replaced under warranty but ONLY if reported on the day it was delivered. If batteries are dropped and broken casing occurs, this is NOT a fault and will NOT be replaced under warranty.
Reverse Polarity – Once again this is extremely rare and highly unlikely, however this can be a manufacturing fault & in the case of this occurring a replacement will be offered under warranty.

I understand that there is now legislation in place for the correct & safe disposal of a waste battery. Can 5 Star help me with disposing of my battery (ies)?

Yes we can help with your battery disposal & safe recycling. Please contact us for further details. For large amounts of waste battery collections, a fee can be paid by Five Star for waste batteries provided that certain criteria are met.

Yes of course, please bring your battery or car to our workshop and we will test your battery Free of Charge with a report of your battery’s current state of health that you can take away with you. This comes with absolutely no obligation to purchase.
(we will always try to offer this test – the hours of 11am-5pm are the best times to visit).

Although the ‘drop testers’ or ‘spikes’ are still used in some areas for testing a battery, it is now commonly thought that this actually harms a good battery. The main reason for this is that the ‘shock’ and drain that a drop tester causes a battery can actually disturb some of the active material on the plates within. It is the active material pasted onto the plates in conjunction with the chemical reaction with the battery’s sulphuric acid which gives the battery its electrical charge and power. It has been said that a drop tester could even possibly cause a break in circuit or even a dead cell – these are not guaranteed outcomes but views of some experienced battery handlers.
Nowadays with the introduction of completely sealed batteries, something as simple as a voltmeter or circuit tester can tell you the basic health of a battery. A good battery should always read somewhere between 12.4 and 13 volts. A voltage reading between 12 and 12.4 volts requires a recharge with no long term damage likely.
However, a battery with less than 12 volts should be charged, retested and monitored for rapid loss of capacity or failure. If a battery has around 10.5 volts or less AFTER recharge, a dead cell is a likely outcome although not always necessarily 100% accurate.
Should a battery fail to show any voltage after charging then it is likely that the battery has been discharged to a very low state where it has been unable to recover. This is not necessarily faulty.
The other methods of testing batteries are by using a digital tester. These are made by various companies and are usually hand held units which are easy to use and give very quick and quite accurate readings. They will generally give voltage and capacity readings and some even give printable reports for the customer to take away with them. These are designed & calibrated for use on old/used batteries – not new batteries.
To use these digital testers for testing new batteries a degree of further interpretation needs to be administered.

Is it wise to “jump start” other vehicles using battery leads connected to your own vehicles’ battery?

Again, due to modern developments on vehicles and batteries, a battery now provides power not only for lights but for ‘under the bonnet computers & sensors’. Modern vehicles now have many electrical extras and other features which have to be run by various control boxes and sensors which are by nature very sophisticated but also very sensitive to sudden changes in voltage.
Therefore we recommend that on vehicles from 1996 onwards it is advisable not to perform such an operation. This is mainly due to instances of disruption to and in some cases failure of not just sensitive in- car stereo equipment but to very expensive ECU’s. An ECU is the car’s Electrical Control Unit – this is the engine’s brain and control centre for all those little warning lights that flash up on your dash from time to time, plus many other major functions in the car and its engine.