The post is six years old, but since you asked: Yes. It's a dead end.



Load testing the battery is not a valid test for this scenario. It appears that the car's electronics are sensitive to the poorer capacitive reactance of an aged battery. The battery will test fine insofar as capability to provide amperage, it just does not filter well.


There is another reason to not run a battery more than four years old in these cars - the poorer filtering capacity of an older battery can cost you. I preach "change the battery at four years". But on my current SE, I let it go almost five. One evening, putting the top up, system voltage glitched, now I need an airbag module.


I guess that even I don't listen to me....