I drained my battery. Should I get a new one?

No, it doesnt sound like you need a battery but if you do you can buy one from anywhere . THe dealer sell a highly overpriced battery.

you can get one from Pep Boys Autozone etc. its nothing special

 

If the battery goes completely flat, you should replace it. The plates never get back to 100% after recharging. It doesn't matter if it's a Ford or Ferrari.

Whether the dealer or you yourself do it, it should go.

 

+1

The potential for a damaged battery (a battery going flat experiences permanent damage) to blow up your electronics is too high, and too expensive. Batteries are cheap, Ferraris not so much.

 

You guys have a point but I have never had that happen ...mi experience is either it wont hold a charge or operates as normal. I dont think going dead once will kill the battery it may only hold a 95% and work for years.

Play it safe and get Optima battery from Autozone.

 

All things considered...buy the battery and sleep better.

 

You're all right. The battery probably isn't shot, but it's suspect, and you don't know to what extent. The biggest issue in my mind is that you can't jump start these cars, and you don't want to end up needing an emergency tow. You're going to buy a battery eventually anyway. Might as well buy it now and save the worry and sleep better.

 

I agree that once it has been fully discharged, it's only a matter of time before it dies on you completely, possibly with no warning. So if you have any concern about it, best to just get a new one.

I've read with interest about the issues with jump starting, but it's interesting that the owner's manual actually gives instructions on how to jump start it. I wonder if there is any difference jump starting from a car with a good battery vs jump starting from one of those portable batteries made specifically for jump starting (ie. is the latter a safer option?).

 

Please get a new battery. Once flat, they can never return to 100% condition. Yes, you can charge it up and fire up the engine and run the car for the next couple of months but you'll never know when it's gonna die on you again. It's like russian roulette. Pretty embarassing when it dies off at the lights.

 

You can have the dealer test the battery. They have a tester that will tell if needs to be replaced. If replacement isn't needed, why create extra waste?

 

Yep, and the reality is not even close to 100%. Even quickly draining it is bad enough, but slowly, and completely dead (maybe for weeks), it's a goner for sure. It can drop a cell or two at any moment, leaving you stranded. Get an Optima 34R and cap the vent tube. Good luck.

 

I would change it... even if the car is starting! a battery that has been previously discharged is no good and will soon loose power... It can bring too many headaches with low voltages at erratic times before you realize it is the battery.

 

For those who have (or had) the Optima 34R, has the battery been reliable? I've read that Optima batteries can have reliability issues. TIA

 

Me too, but only under the hood (much higher temperatures). And supposedly that has been fixed a while back, but with the battery inside the car, zero worries for us anyway. Just charged it every week or two, and it should last a long time. If you want my opinion on that, give me a couple of years < ha ha>; just replaced it a month ago.

By the way, read Ferrari started putting that exact same battery on 430s in '09. Maybe such an owner could confirm out of curiosity. Battery fits without any modification, by the way.

 

No way I would replace it! You said it seems to be doing fine now so why replace it? Buy a battery when you need it not when you don't. I have a Porsche GT2 and it sits a lot and in the last 5 years it has probably went completely dead at least 3 times because I either forgot to hook it up to the battery maintainer or the breaker tripped or another reason. Each and every time I recharged it and the 8 year old battery is going strong and never gives me any problem unless it goes undriven for 3 or 4 months without a maintainer hooked up which I rarely forget to do.

 

I am with you on this. It if aint broke ....

My car ran out of gas once. There can be sediment in the tank that hurts the motor so I have to repalce the car now