Originally Posted by jmcraney

Wow! What you are experiencing is very rare, and suspicious. That "the battery being disconnected too long triggered the car to think it was being stolen" sounds like something that the technicians made up in the break room. Although the battery may be adequate to start your car and operate it, it may not be adequate to provide the POWER-ON RESET. Or, it may be adequate to provide the POR now after the car's charging system has raised the charge. So, if you disconnect it for an hour and reconnect it and everything is OK then that is fine. But, if you still have the same problem after that then you are still uncertain. As to the consideration for replacing the battery: if your battery is over 36 months old, measured from the time the electrolyte was first poured in, then you will not leave much money on the table if you just replace it. Most batteries fail between 36 and 48 months after the electrolyte is first installed. If you decide to go the new battery route it is important that you insure that the new battery is fully charged before you connect it to your car. New batteries are good batteries most of the time but not necessarily fully charged. Of course what I am suggesting may be a "red herring" but considering your other options it seems worth a try. It doesn't cost much and is very unlikely to make things worse.

Testing batteries by the methods available at dealerships is okay and catches most bad batteries but some batteries have defects that are not detected by these test. Batteries, being commodity items these days, should just be replaced after a certain age if they are suspect, or even if they are not suspect. The report that you attached to your post looks a little suspicious. The measured volts of 13.01, from your attached test report looks suspicious. A fully charged wet standard battery should read about 12.65V at 70 deg F and most batteries are only able to get that high when they are new. The 13.01 seems very unlikely and may be an indication of poor technique by the technician. That high reading may mean that the surface charge was not removed before testing after they charged your battery at the dealership. As far as I know the gold standard for testing batteries is still to measure the specific gravity of each cell with a hydrometer.

Good luck! I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.