Battery Died
 

I went to start the '08 GX 470 this morning and all I got was the clicking sounds of a battery with very little cold cranking power to turn the engine over. Should I be expecting this from a five-year old OEM battery? Also, since the batt is out of warranty, should I take it to the Lexus dealer and have it replaced or get one from Interstate or Sear's? Does anyone know if this is ablout the average life expectancy of the OEM battery? Any suggestion or answers will help a great deal. As you may be able to tell, I'm a newbie to Lexus.

Thank you kindly,

Martin

2008 GX 470

Mine died right at the 5yr mark. It was such a hassle to get it replaced by lexus (the battery stated it was an 84 month battery), the CS rep said we never made such a thing...as I was staring at it in the engine bay. I just rode up to Advance Auto, and bought the one they had that fit.

I wouldn't over think it.

I still have the original battery in my 05 GX, and it is still going strong. I only have 34,000 miles on the vehicle, and, when it is not being used regularly over an extended period of time, I do hook it up to a trickle charger.

When it does need to be replaced, there is no chance whatever that I will be replacing it with a (very pricey) battery from a Lexus dealer.

5-6 years is about normal for battery life. I wouldn't hesitate to get a new one.

I have a "werker" branded battery from batteries plus in my 4Runner that has been in there for almost 7 years now, which i would consider to be harsh operating conditions here in the Colorado winters.

It's WAY overdue to be replaced, but I am almost curious to see just how long it lasts! And now that i've said that, its probably going to die on me when i'm parked in some scuzzy part of the city.

Interstate makes good batteries, and even the Everstart MAXX ones from wal-mart are decent and have alot of CCAs

I wouldn't take it into to the dealer. Everyone raves about the original Panasonic battery that came with the truck but Lexus/Toyota doesn't sell them as replacements. They will just charge you more for the same battery you can find in other stores. I believe there are only one or two battery manufactures now and as long as you get the right CCA you should be fine.

My suggestion is to check your alternator before dropping in the new battery. The battery in my 2006 with 60K miles died earlier this year. Without thinking, I just went down to local Firestone and got a new Interstate battery (I chose this model based on many suggestions on the web). They wanted to check my alternator before selling me the new one but I drove another car and didn't want the hassle of bringing the truck back again. About a month later, my alternator died. I was 100 miles away from home and had to drive home on just battery power. That wasn't fun.

My guess is that my original battery was still good but the alternator was failing and that's the reason why the battery died. I did find a fair number of people with our V8 engines who had to replace the alternator. If you have a voltmeter, it's a real simple check. I was too lazy and almost got stranded.

I had to replace my alt at 105k. It failed pretty spectacularly...

I replaced the original battery in my '05 about 3 months ago.

As always I went w/ a Duralast Gold battery from Autozone.