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Mine lasted 2.5 years. Is this normal?
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Battery life?
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Battery life depends a lot on how you use the vehicle. Number of starts per day, length of time running per start, amount of time without running, etc.
Mine is a daily and I drive to work 4 times a week at 20 min of driving per start. No extended time without running longer than 1 week. My battery is around 3.5 yr old.
I have killed a battery in 1 year when my commute was 7 min door to door and I never drove the truck anywhere else.
Mine is a daily and I drive to work 4 times a week at 20 min of driving per start. No extended time without running longer than 1 week. My battery is around 3.5 yr old.
I have killed a battery in 1 year when my commute was 7 min door to door and I never drove the truck anywhere else.
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Most of my driving is short distance to work , lunch, dinner. But al my other vehicles in the past same driving habits and they lasted 7 years(Toyota L/C) 3-4 years Jeep.
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About a year and a half ago I replaced mine with an Optima because it came as part of a promotion I was involved in. The factory AGM battery was still fine at the time. The Optima was made by the same company, Clarios, that makes the factory Ford battery, and looks identical except for the color and label. Anyhow the Optima just started failing this week. I've had to use my small jump-box to start the Bronco yesterday and this morning because I haven't had time to swap batteries yet. I did keep the factory battery when I put the Optima in. Last night I put a meter on it and it still had 11.5 volts after sitting for a year and a half, so I put the charger on it and will swap it back in after work tonight. See if I can get another year or so out of it. When I get some time I'll have to investigate whether I have a parasitic drain somewhere.
It also depends on ambient temperature. Both extreme heat and cold will lower your battery life expectancy. Being stored in a garage at night will help. The other things mentioned above will also have an impact
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Batteries and vehicles are not what they used to be. Batteries are not lasting as long, and vehicles never really have times they power all the way down. Buy a cheap 1 amp trickle charger and any time you are leaving it for a few days hook it up. Sounds like you need long weekend drives to charge and free your soul.
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2.5 years isn’t normal. Would that fall under warranty?
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Mine was about the same. Not normal, but definitely not uncommon. Not sure if the new AGM batteries are just crap or if the BMS is beating them up. One thing I can fairly confidently say before it gets hijacked, it was not ASS that killed my battery - I run with it disabled and almost always have.
Not sure what kills them, but they get to the point where they stop holding a charge. The Bronco BMS is set to try to keep them at 12.5V idle at room temp (80% state of charge - voltage will vary based on a lot of things). But it also does things like slam high charge into them if you are engine braking trying to act like a regenerative system, and there's a lot of fairly large electric loads other than just the starter (EPS, braking, crapton of computers, etc). But I wouldn't discount that maybe some are just bad batteries and QC at the battery plant is lacking - not all folks have this issue, and 5 +/- years still seems to be average for a car battery
After I pulled my AGM out, I gave it to my son and he stuck it in his Bronco II since his battery was out. I figured, heck, even if he gets a few more months out of it it wouldn't hurt anything since it just needs to start the car. It's been going strong there, but it just has an old-school dumb alternator and one extremely basic ECM and so all the battery really has to do is turn the starter. I keep waiting for the battery to just die die since that alternator isn't made for an AGM, but it hasn't given up yet.
I splurged on a LiFePo Anti-Gravity battery to replace it with. Mostly because I was just curious how it would perform.
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I used to get 5-7 years out of a battery, but with these AGMs I seem to be getting around 3 
I also used to get better than the EPA milage until they started putting ethanol in our fuel
I also used to get better than the EPA milage until they started putting ethanol in our fuel
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My 82 bronco got 13 years out of the battery.
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Older vehicles had 0 parasitic drain when off, which helps a ton!
Not going to reply to anyone in particular...couldn't decide who to reply to.
Anyway, no, your factory battery will not last as long on your Bronco (or really any vehicle built in the last 4-5 years) as it did on older vehicles. The average seems to be about 3 years now, give or take. 2.5 years is a touch early, but since OP states they're making short trips with it, that is to be expected.
The REASON batteries on newer vehicles don't last as long today as they did even a few years ago (I had my 2017 Ram for 5 years and never replaced the battery) is really two-fold: the BMS (battery management system) and the sheer number of modules with KAM (Keep Alive Memory) in them.
Basically, as pointed out, the various modules don't really 'turn off' until the BMS says the battery is too weak and shuts them off. This means that there is ALWAYS a parasitic draw on the battery, even when it enters a 'deep sleep' state, because a few modules NEED to stay active to unlock doors and start the vehicle.
Couple that with the BMS determining how much and when to charge the battery, and arguably not being very good at it, the battery may never actually hit 'full charge' once it's installed, ESPECIALLY if you only do short trips. If you're running 20-30 minutes a day, twice a day, every day of the week, you stand a better chance of the battery staying at a higher charge than if you're making two or four 7-minute trips a few times a week.
In short, vehicles today are HARD on batteries, and the days of 7+ years (or even 5+ years) on a battery are basically over. You can prolong the life of your battery by putting a 1.5-ish amp trickle charger/maintainer on it and plugging it in overnight or whenever it's not going to be driven for a while, but I doubt you're going to get back to the 5+ years out of it unless you're lucky. 3 years seems to be the new average battery life.
Anyway, no, your factory battery will not last as long on your Bronco (or really any vehicle built in the last 4-5 years) as it did on older vehicles. The average seems to be about 3 years now, give or take. 2.5 years is a touch early, but since OP states they're making short trips with it, that is to be expected.
The REASON batteries on newer vehicles don't last as long today as they did even a few years ago (I had my 2017 Ram for 5 years and never replaced the battery) is really two-fold: the BMS (battery management system) and the sheer number of modules with KAM (Keep Alive Memory) in them.
Basically, as pointed out, the various modules don't really 'turn off' until the BMS says the battery is too weak and shuts them off. This means that there is ALWAYS a parasitic draw on the battery, even when it enters a 'deep sleep' state, because a few modules NEED to stay active to unlock doors and start the vehicle.
Couple that with the BMS determining how much and when to charge the battery, and arguably not being very good at it, the battery may never actually hit 'full charge' once it's installed, ESPECIALLY if you only do short trips. If you're running 20-30 minutes a day, twice a day, every day of the week, you stand a better chance of the battery staying at a higher charge than if you're making two or four 7-minute trips a few times a week.
In short, vehicles today are HARD on batteries, and the days of 7+ years (or even 5+ years) on a battery are basically over. You can prolong the life of your battery by putting a 1.5-ish amp trickle charger/maintainer on it and plugging it in overnight or whenever it's not going to be driven for a while, but I doubt you're going to get back to the 5+ years out of it unless you're lucky. 3 years seems to be the new average battery life.
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AGM isn't the problem. I've bought Optima batteries (the ones with the round cells) for previous vehicles. I first bought one around 1994-1995. They lasted for years.
Batteries always seem to give up at the most inconvenient time. Usually on a road trip/vacation for me. I am proactive about replacing them at three years to avoid being stranded. About ready to replace the battery in my 2022 non daily driver Bronco
2022. 17k miles. Sits minimum of 4 days a week. Then driven strictly as a weekend vehicle. Garage kept in central FL weather. Work vehicle is a 2019 Ford with original dual AGM’s. 100k miles lots of start cycles. No guarantees, just run em till you hear the click click.
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