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Battery - not boat but car...


Pete of Ebor

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Just a shout to the battery experts on the forum. I know it's not a boat, but my firend's mother's car would not start so I went round to jump start it. out of curiosity, I put a voltmeter on it just to see what it said.. it said 9.1V ! I don't know if it is any special type (eg Calcium silver.. or bog standard Lead) but at 9.1V, is it likely to be trashed ? The car did jump start OK, and was left running for 20 mins before I had to go. She did take it for a run later that day and it started OK.

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If it is 4/5 years old is probably past its best assuming there is no problem with the car, alternator or belt problem.

Is the car in daily use and is it driven or just quick hops into town, might just need a good run now and again, but it does sound like a cell gone.

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It will probably let her down again.  Best to put it on charge and see if the amps drop off overnight.  Or drive it to Halfords and get them to fit a new battery.  On some cars, removing the battery can cause problems and garages typically connect a 12v source to the leads while they swop out the battery to avoid any issues.  It might just be radio settings that are lost but alarms can go off too.  Possibly problems with central locking or keyless entry systems too.

http://www.aa1car.com/library/battery_disconnect_problems.htm

Edited by mross
added evidence!
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She said the battery isl less than 2 yrs old, but she does only do short runs and not very frequently.. in fact she had trouble with her last car which was a diesel (this one is petrol) which I diagnosed as diesel bug ! They had two cars and hers used to sit for weeks on end unused. She took it to the garage, but they'd never heard of diesel bug, and had no idea what it was... other than the diesel filter was blocked with some slimy gunk.

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19 minutes ago, Pete of Ebor said:

She said the battery isl less than 2 yrs old, but she does only do short runs and not very frequently.. in fact she had trouble with her last car which was a diesel (this one is petrol) which I diagnosed as diesel bug ! They had two cars and hers used to sit for weeks on end unused. She took it to the garage, but they'd never heard of diesel bug, and had no idea what it was... other than the diesel filter was blocked with some slimy gunk.

Modern cars have gone horridly bonkers with crazy electronics, they're not after all a fly by wire Boeing 787 Dreamliner.  Apart from the natural slow self discharge that batteries do, most cars these days, as already stated have certain things still running to keep systems ticking over whilst switched off, clock ect, ect. A small battery trickle conditioner charger will keep the battery charged, some of which will plug into the fag lighter socket. Or a solar battery conditioner, in the summer anyway.

Edited by bizzard
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But most cigarette lighter sockets are not powered when ignition is off........... only when 'on' or in 'aux' position.  My Skoda doesn't even have the ignition switch but socket becomes live when you switch on the radio.  I think, however, that the radio will switch itself off after an hour.  The CTEK battery maintainers come with a nice plug so that you make a permanent connection to the battery with ring terminals and then quickly connect the M/F plug when you need to.  This would make it easy for friend's mum to do the hook up if the car is garaged.

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3 minutes ago, mross said:

But most cigarette lighter sockets are not powered when ignition is off........... only when 'on' or in 'aux' position.  My Skoda doesn't even have the ignition switch but socket becomes live when you switch on the radio.  I think, however, that the radio will switch itself off after an hour.  The CTEK battery maintainers come with a nice plug so that you make a permanent connection to the battery with ring terminals and then quickly connect the M/F plug when you need to.  This would make it easy for friend's mum to do the hook up if the car is garaged.

Generally, if the cars got an ashtray the fag lighter socket will be alive with the ignition turned off so you can sit, light up and have a nice peaceful fag with everything else switched off, my car does this  as do most older cars.  Otherwise a battery conditioner charger with crocodile clips to attach it directly to the battery lugs.

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33 minutes ago, bizzard said:

Generally, if the cars got an ashtray the fag lighter socket will be alive with the ignition turned off

I agree.  Can you remember when they stopped fitting ashtrays as standard?

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3 minutes ago, mross said:

I agree.  Can you remember when they stopped fitting ashtrays as standard?

Can't remember really, began around the late 1990's I think,  but omitting them must have earned the makers an absolute extra fortune as they didn't reduce the cost of their cars accordingly. Fag lighter sockets were omitted too on most cars for a short while and then reintroduced when all the plug in electric gizmos came on the scene. 

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I don't remember ever having a car with no lighter socket, but the lighter part disappeared in about 2000 - probably the same time I stopped driving a French car. My current car has two sockets (one in the boot).

And mross - my Skoda radio switches itself off after 20 minutes with the ignition off.

Meanwhile back at the OP -- the battery can run down remarkably quickly if some of the older types of aftermarket alarm are fitted.

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4 hours ago, mross said:

But most cigarette lighter sockets are not powered when ignition is off........... only when 'on' or in 'aux' position. 

VW cars, or at least some of them,  have an alternative position for the fuse supplying the 12V socket to enable it in an 'always connected ' state. The handbook doesn't mention that,  but then it is a complete waste of paper.

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Actung.   Beware of German cars, often exported over here and to the US booby trapped complete with false information in the handbook. Needless to say their home market cars are hunkydory, naturally. Getting their own back for losing the wars I reckon.  I've just been at werk on a Mercedes Vito camper van this nach mittag, sorting a charging trouble. The owner couldn't find the battery, the handbook said its battery is under the drivers seat, well it would be if it was still left hand drive.

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Amazon and eBay are busy selling memory savers for battery changes that plug into the cigar lighter socket.  But they fail to mention that the product won't work on modern cars.  And they all need a separate 12V battery to power them.  At the end of the day, it's probably cheaper just to pay a garage to do it as they will have to sort you out when windows, convertibles etc, fail to  work.  I know on the Defender you had to go through an elaborate procedure to re-synchronise the car keys with the onboard systems that involved opening and closing the driver door and doing something with the lights.

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