I have a 2004 Fabia VRS which my other half knocks about in. Suddenly find the battery to be flat in the mornings, new quality battery fitted 11 months ago. Charge the battery, 12.4 volts engine stopped and 14.5volts running. This sort of tells me all is fine in that department? Anything else I could look at? My gut feeling is somethings taking a feed overnight or the battery is actually duff and not holding a charge? I would appreciate any assistance as I am suffering earache LOL
Most battery places offer a free drop test. Get one done as although battery shows over 12v it could be faulty. If ok then investigate what's drawing a current. Turn everything off and using a multimeter across fuses you can work out which circuit has a draw. Should narrow it down.
Thanks Balmy, Girlfriend came up with a stormer, she has disconnected the battery now so come the morning we will know a little more, ie battery is flat again or battery is full.
Had a similar problem with the other half's car. I found the alternator was dodgy inside and was getting warm/drawing current when switched off. Had it repaired and was fine. You have to trace what is drawing current from the batt.
not that unusual for battery of that age to be u/s, unlikely boot light it doesn't draw that much, after time latch i would expect about 0.05-0.1 amp currant draw. 12.4 volts is a bit low for fully charged battery.
14.5v would seem a bit high to me with the engine running - should be around 13.8v ideally. Which would lead me to believe that the battery has a defective cell in it ( the high resistance to the charging current pushes up the voltage ). Try measuring the battery voltage when the starter motor is turning over - if it drops to 9v or below then the battery is probably trout. The problem with "modern" fully sealed batteries is that you can't get a hydrometer in to each cell to check the SG of the electrolyte - so you can't easily prove if one cell is defective. Your GF's idea is a good place to start though - if it holds charge when it's disconnected, but dies when it's connected to the car then you have a current drain somewhere, an earth or something not switching off...
Thanks all, Battery has kept the charge overnight whilst disconnected from the car. Looking like a draw somewhere with the ignition off?
Our BMW was a pig to solve a similar problem but I found it by accident one night and a bit of googling solved it... The car had two "modes" - awake and asleep: When the car is unlocked, the alarm disabled and it's ready to start it will draw about 10 amps or something to power all the circuits, doing all the checks and being ready to start the engine. When you lock the car, it has a period where it waits for everything to stabilise (air pressure for alarm, fans to cool engine, etc) and will drop into sleep mode after about 5-10 minutes. This mode draws about 0.2 amps to just power the anti-theft circuits and wait to be unlocked and awake from the sleep mode. One night I'd been in the garage working on the bike. When I stepped outside I could hear a fan running in the car. It turned out that the internal step-down resistor for the variable speed fan went awol and short circuited, which fed power to the fan when it was supposed to be off. The upshot was that the car detected the current draw and never went into sleep mode, so it drained the battery after a couple of hours. You may find something similar - something that's gone awol and continues to draw current after the car is locked. As above, try some of the fuses to see what circuit is drawing current as this will help narrow it down.
Hmm... It may be something simple, or it may be a complete bitch to find... Hopefully the former rather than the latter. Check all the obvious stuff like the light in the boot etc - You'd be surprised how often it's something like that.
Turn on the video camera on your phone, place in boot and close the boot door.Reopen and check your phone footage. Easiest way to see if your boot light switch is faulty, seen it a lot of times
http://ducatiforum.co.uk/f18/all-you-budding-detectives%85-19030/ Remember to let them out afterwards.
i have never thought of that, i have however put the apprentice in. even when theirs feck all wrong with it. :tongue:
Well, after several hours with the multimeter on Saturday its still puzzling me. Checked for a draw with the ignition off and doors closed, 0.2ma, all good. I am thinking its either related to the alarm or something with the central locking. I cannot check a draw with it locked and the alarm on as the alarm trips when I remove the negative lead to use the multimeter. Whilst running, even with the blower on and rear demister the volts in are still in the high thirteens. The battery was not fully charged, about 11.9v and dropped to 8.7v on starting, I know this figure is low, should be min 9.6v I think but I assume its down to the battery not being fully charged? My suspicion is the alarm, looks like I will have to send it into a auto electricians.
