philrylance Posted June 17, 2015 Report Share Posted June 17, 2015 Evening all Symptoms; Three times in past 6 weeks would not start in morning. Battery completely dead. leave car 1 or 2 days seems ok - leave car 4 days or more - dead! Start car with jump leads, ammeter shows big charge whilst running - far too big. Three places have checked alt. and batt. Alt. showing charge to batt. at approx. 13.9; batt. showing good condition and charging about just under 14. All say both seem OK. These symptoms are variable and the ammeter is sometimes almost normal, other times between Ok and full charge; too high I think About three months ago I fitted a new pet. pump relay to a Bosch as the old one blew. Originally I fitted the terminals wrongly and had a massive discharge. Changed the to and from terminals and all seemed OK. Could this be the prob? have fitted new wiper switch - couldn't get Clears Hooters so Lucas. Haven't yet filed out metal dash but all works well. Does this switch earth to metal dash? Am I correct in thinking something is running to earth and draining the batt. Any help or thoughts would be much appreciated. I am not very well up on matters 12v. electrical. Can change mechanical bits and play a Hofner bass guitar OK, but that's about it! cheers Phil Rylance Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pogo Posted June 17, 2015 Report Share Posted June 17, 2015 Hi Phil If you think something is draining the battery, would removing the terminal on the battery help? That way it wouldn't be able to drain and after four days re-connect and see if it starts. I'm sure someone else will have a better idea though. Roger Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Peter Cobbold Posted June 17, 2015 Report Share Posted June 17, 2015 (edited) With a charged battery and everything switched off, connect a multimeter set to read about 500milliamps between the battery live terminal and the main live red cable. Then, one at a time remove and replace fuses, or disconnect then reconnect non-fused items. When you remove the faulty circuit the current will drop to zero. Begin with that solenoid! Agree with Roger. Because its safer - less fire risk - to leave the battery disconnected when car is unattended. Peter Edited June 17, 2015 by Peter Cobbold Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ianc Posted June 18, 2015 Report Share Posted June 18, 2015 My Citroen estate displayed suddenly similar symptoms a few months ago - battery failure, so replaced and all now well. You could fit an isolator switch or one of those Dis-Car-Nect devices, which would enable you to check as Pogo/Roger has described. Peter has the right idea when it comes to tracking the culprit. Once had a radio, I think it was in a Polo, which was eating more than 10 amps (I kid you not, went off-scale on the multimeter!) when switched off - that flattened the battery very rapidly. Ian Cornish Quote Link to post Share on other sites
philrylance Posted June 28, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 28, 2015 Thank you all very much for your helpful comments. Very sorry for the late reply after you had taken trouble to reply, have had lots of other things to do. Will try to work out what is the cause. At the moment all is well with the ammeter needle in the correct position when running - Yesterday it showed too much charge when running, but started this am. OK Cheers Phil Will let you know as/when progress occurs. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RogerH Posted June 28, 2015 Report Share Posted June 28, 2015 Hi Phil. whilst checking for current drain have a look at the earth cables - batt to body, chassis to engine and consider fitting an extra - battery to engine. I also play a bass guitar but not necessarily OK Roger Quote Link to post Share on other sites
philrylance Posted June 29, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2015 Thanks Roger - will try that. Could use an old E string I suppose !! Cheers Phil Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ianc Posted June 29, 2015 Report Share Posted June 29, 2015 Blow me! As the MOT is due tomorrow and had carried out a service and check on Saturday, I thought I would give the beast a blast this morning. Battery dead - and it is isolated whenever parked so cannot be leaking charge. I had used the car to go to an NLG meeting only 10 days ago, and drove home without problems in the dark with headlights and the spotlights ablaze. Should I complain to KwikFit as the battey lasted only just over 13 years (it had a 4-year guarantee)? I noticed that the battery has got heavier since 2012, but I managed to extract it and now there's a brand new Halford's battery in there - all of £74.99 with 3 year guarantee, 640 CCA (starting current) and 70 Ampere-hours capacity. As soon as I turned the switch, the car burst into life! Ian Cornish Quote Link to post Share on other sites
philrylance Posted June 29, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2015 Ian I suppose some guys are just born lucky!!! Happy motoring for another thirteen years. Phil Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ianc Posted June 30, 2015 Report Share Posted June 30, 2015 Hoping so, Phil! I think it helps that 4-pot TRs on SUs, even when modified, start easily. And an alternator means that the battery has no work to do from about one minute after the engine has started - it just provides a reference voltage for the alternator's own control mechanism. I have been fortunate with batteries - the original in my old Xantia lasted 10 years and I suspect that the one in the C5 would have been almost 9 years old. Ian Cornish Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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