How Long Does a Chevy Cruze Battery Last?

The Chevy Cruze is one of the best-selling cars in the country, so there's likely a whole lot of folks who want to know how long the battery will last in their Cruze. The truth is battery lifespan can vary significantly, based on a wide range of factors and anyone who is giving you a specific number or even a range without explaining factors that can impact battery lifespan is not giving you an honest answer. Heat is one of the biggest enemies of batteries and auto manufacturers know this, which is why many relocate batteries to cooler locations in a vehicle, like the trunk or interior. While some Cruzes have a battery in the trunk, many are still found under the hood. If you live on the Gulf Coast or the desert Southwest, you probably won't see batteries last as long as folks who live in more temperate climates, like San Diego.

Newer models of the Chevy Cruze come equipped with Start/Stop technology, which stops the engine when the vehicle comes to a complete stop and then starts the engine again when the driver presses on the accelerator (kind of like a gas-powered golf cart). While that can offer improved fuel economy, that places a tremendous strain on car batteries and many newer vehicles come equipped with more robust AGM batteries to handle the thousands of additional times they are called upon to start an engine.

Newer vehicles are also now laden with all kinds of modern electrical devices that many of us take for granted. You won't find a Chevrolet Cruze on the road without GM's OnStar service, which continues to operate even when the car is shut off and even if you don't have an active subscription. Just a generation ago, Chevrolet was selling a Cavalier with a 2.4-liter engine that had 50% more displacement than the largest Cruze engine offered today (1.6-liters), but the battery suggested for starting that Cavalier engine is a Group 75/25 battery, which in an OPTIMA REDTOP is just 33.1 pounds.

The result of new technology like Start/Stop and OnStar, is that even the Chevy Cruzes that comes with the smaller 1.4-liter engine today take a massive H6 battery (the OPTIMA H6 battery weighs in at 54 pounds). There is some correlation between battery weight and reserve capacity, as physically larger batteries tend to weigh more, have more active material and tend to have more reserve capacity, which is what is really important on newer vehicles. However, if you own a Chevy Cruze with the 1.6-liter engine and your direct-fit replacement battery is an H7 battery (even larger than an H6), you'll have a hard time finding any H7 battery that weighs as much as OPTIMA's 54-pound H6 battery.

So what's the solution for a Chevy Cruze owner, who wants an OPTIMA battery for it's superior performance and lifespan, but needs a larger H7 battery for their vehicle? Until OPTIMA starts offering H7 batteries (which should happen later in the summer of 2020), Weistec offers an easy-to-use bracket that will allow people to use an H6 battery in an H7 battery tray.

We can also tell you that whether you live in Death Valley or Detroit, you will maximize the performance and lifespan of whatever battery you own, if you keep it fully-charged whenever possible. Most battery chargers will work just fine in getting this job done for you, but if you don't have a battery charger yet, we want to let you know that if you buy an OPTIMA Digital 1200 battery charger from us at the same time that you buy an OPTIMA battery from us, we'll extend your battery warranty by a full year.