My battery just took a dump

[SWThomas]

I was kind of expecting it since the battery is 4 years old but I didn't expect it today. That's how these things usually happen... I drove over to see my wife and when I got back in the L and tried to crank it up, it started doing all kinds of wacky stuff. Some of the relays were clicking and my gauges were sweeping back and forth. It would do this for about 10 seconds when I turned the key forward. It wouldn't even attempt to turn the engine over. So I called Rick @ ATS and asked him if he could help me diagnose the problem and he agreed. I put my multimeter on the batter and the voltage was 12.something. I can't remember. He told me to try and crank it and if the voltage dipped a lot then I had a problem. I did and it did. It dipped down to like 4.something. Rick told me I have a dead cell in my battery. So I got my wife to jump start the L and now I'm gonna go down to my local Ford dealer and get a new Motorcraft battery. I'm gonna go with part# BXT 65-850. It's a bit of an upgrade from the OEM battery, but I've heard great things about this battery. Just wanted to share my story...