If you had to buy a battery today!??

kenchan

dwight is your battery actually weak? mine is a 09 as well and still very strong. i expect to get another 5yrs out of it.

do you check water level and keep a good charge?

Dwight Frye

My battery has shown no signs of weakness and I keep the water level topped off. It's a daily driver. My experience with car batteries has been that a 48 month battery always seems to last between 46-50 months. They give little warning other than "oh, the car turned over a little slower than usual" and 2-3 starts later it's deader than a mackerel. I prefer a PM approach, I would hate to be somewhere and have to call for a jump or tow.
I also figure that the high temps we have in SouCal are pretty rough on batteries even though cold starting amps are pretty much immaterial most of the time.