Trying to convince Pepboys the battery they sold me is bad.
 

On Saturday my 99' Civic had some trouble starting, it got progressively worse until it just wouldn't crank anymore. Took the battery out an had it tested at Autozone, said it was bad. Went to pepboys to buy a new battery since I had some of those $10 off coupons. Aside from the car needing a jump to get started even after installing the "new" battery, the car worked fine for the rest of the day on Sunday.

Fast forward to today Monday and I get in the car this morning and it will not start.

Took the car to Pepboys this evening and they hooked it up to their tester, we had to jump the car to start it again, they had me rev the engine, turn the lights on and rev the engine again, ( I am assuming this was a load test) The test machine said:

Starter: Good

Charging system: Good

Battery: Good - Recharge

So I went home and did my own analysis

Symptoms:

(All voltage readings taken at battery terminals.)

Car will not start, dash lights up, starter clicks rapidly

Battery reads 10.6v

Jump car, starts right away,(this leads me to believe the starter is working properly)

While running battery reads 14.3v (this leads me to believe the alternator is working properly)

Drive car for 30 minutes, shut car off,

Battery immediately drops to 11.3v and over the next 30 seconds drops to 10.6v but does not go any lower and stays there.

When I first installed the "new" battery it would not start the car and I had to jump it. It worked fine for the rest of the day, then this morning car will not start. The voltage reading and the fact that it drops to a constant voltage and stays there tells me there is a bad cell in the "new" battery.

I went through the fuses in the engine bay box with the multimeter and non of the circuits are drawing any current with the car off. I did not test the fuses in the interior panel. The fact that once the battery reaches 10.6v it stops and the voltage does not drop any further leads me to believe I do not have a grounding issue or post key off current draw.

Any suggestions that I may have overlooked before I go at it with the fine people at Pepboys?

Do a parasitic draw test with your multimeter. You should only have .1 amp of power after about 5 to 10 minutes of shutoff. If you have more than that then something is staying on and constantly draining your battery

I will do so when I get home today.

If there was a constant drain, would the voltage continue to drop? I checked the voltage at the posts again this morning and it was still at 10.6v.

I'm surprised they won't take care of it for you. At my work if a customer is convinced their battery is bad even though it tests good we will take care of it.

But if you had constant drain it would keep dropping not stop at X voltage. I would just raise hell... make them give what you want. Tell them you want a refund so you can buy a battery somewhere else. That will make them cave.

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if a full charge battery works for like a week,its your alternator bro

Trying to convince Pepboys the battery they sold me is bad.
 

But it hasn't been a week.

I would read the fine print on your receipt to expect what they might do.

I would ask nicely and request them to swap it out with
Another one (what is it to them if they have or will tell you that it's a new battery). They should swap it out.

Did the parasitic draw test and was not reading anything over .1 amps.

Brought it back out of the car and they tested it again and it came up as faulty, new battery in the car and everything is working as it should so far. I have been testing the voltage regularly before starting and after shutting off the car and it has been staying at 12.6-12.8v. This morning it read 12.68v after sitting over night.

Sounds like it had a bad cell. Battery testers are not consistant. I use one everyday and it tells me all kinds of different things. A battery with 6 volts which is obviously bad It tells me it needs a charge.. good that it finally faulted for you.