Battery

[henrym3]

Another battery story, went out yesterday having not used the vehicle for 24 hours and find the voltage at 3.4v. No previous indication that there was anything wrong. Battery is a Yuasa 95Ah 850a. Being the good citizen that I am the receipt is taped to the side of the battery. The 3 year warranty ran out 2 months ago . Having bought one of those small compact jump start boxes that fit in the clove compartment I thought I’d try it out on the really flat battery. Totally surprised that it started the car right up. Then plugged it in to wall socket and recharged to full capacity again in 30 minutes. Have now fitted another Yuasa 100 Ah 900a battery. Took the bad battery and stuck it on the trickle charger. It won’t go above 10.3v.

[Alan Gunn]

I bought one of the small jump start boxes from Amazon (so i could send it back when it didn't work).
Took it with me on the Saturday morning to my m8's garage i go every week for a chat and a brew.
I put it on his old merc diesel van that has sat in the corner for 18 + months with a totally flat/dead battery and i nearly fell over when it started.
Can't remember of hand the make of the one i bought but it had some good reviews on the net.
Got 2 now one in each car (you never know)......

[X5Sport]

Internal battery short circuit taking 3-4 cells out. I had this happen on a year old Škoda with an AGM battery fitted. Dealer blamed the Stop/Start System VAG use as the cause, and said they were seeing a fair few of these. AGM batteries can - as you may have just found - fail with zero warning and zero fixability.

The fun bit with the Škoda was that it triggered the alarm (which had its own battery) as the car thought that the main battery had been nicked!! It took me many minutes to get a centrally locked car open with no power to open the locks and no key slot on the door! I wasn’t popular as it was 04:00 when the fun started - and it was raining too

I have now learned the procedures for getting into my cars that use keyless or similar entry/ignition and don’t have an obvious key slot! Lesson learned the hard way

[Leslie]

3 years is very disappointing for a battery (imo), did it have a hard life or just one of those annoyingly early failures ?

[Themoog2]

Batteries are rubbish these days. Last year the one on my X5 was only two years old and I parked for 20 min with the hazard lights on. When I went to start it the battery was dead. Wouldn't charge up on my trickle charger either. Guess what.. Couldn't find the receipt. It was a Duracell car battery.

[Smeeagain]

Could someone post a link to one of these 'small' jump start packs please? I have a Clarke 4000 but it is a beast and am interested in the small one

[Alan Gunn]

Could someone post a link to one of these 'small' jump start packs please? I have a Clarke 4000 but it is a beast and am interested in the small one

This is the one i bought and started the merc van with i think it was 2.5 diesel but it had been standing for over 18 months.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/DBPOWER-DJS50- ... 144&sr=8-6

[henrym3]

Same sort of thing I have, I now feel much more confident that it will start the car in any circumstances plus with winter coming on all the other facilities it has should mean you’re always going to have power for light phones computers etc.
Leslie I wouldn’t say the battery had a hard life, I have been doing shorter journeys now I’m retired but it’s had a weekly blast on the trickle charger to keep in tip top condition? So yes, disappointing really.

[ttr]

Eh up all,

Useful to know as my car is just like henrym3 , used at weekend and keep it on the the trickle charge once my battery indicator showed it needs a recharge.

So far battery is holding up but might well consider a jump start pack having read this thread.

Cheers all.

[hennabm]

I use mine mainly at weekends and so far the battery will last from Sunday night to Friday evening. I have even managed to leave it a full 7 days and it still started.

Of course I had the incident at the airport where it had to stand for 17 days. It was as dead as any dodo and took some time to jump start. That was even with commercial scale jump leads.

With a cruise planned next year for 11 days I am worried that I may find a dead car. So thank you for the link for the jump starter.

Another thought I had was to put in one of these battery cut off connectors. The sort with the little brass knob to twist in or out.
The only problem would be getting in again to reconnect on the battery. It would mean a wriggle over the seats and under the boot floor.

This is my only real concern with it - leaving it over 7 days. Otherwise a real nice car and one I really enjoy driving.

[Horizon]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/Car-Auto-Remot ... 1380278963

[hennabm]

Thank you Horizon.

Have you tried one?

[Horizon]

No I havnt tried one personally, but had read somewhere that someone had used a similar one as a cure for a parasitic battery drain fix.
Not sure if the one listed is any good, I usually research the reviews, there's one that uses a rocker switch instead of a remote, probably more reliable, and may just require a thin 2 core cable to be run up to an accessible switch in your console or dash.
My E53 was only a weekend car, so I bought a new battery to prevent it going flat if left for prolonged periods, it would do 2 weeks or more without going flat, but if you've got something causing a drain, a new battery won't help.

[Alan Gunn]

I have left my e53 3.0d for 3 weeks a few times and it has started with no problem (fingers where crossed the first time).

[henrym3]

Just out of interest. If you immobilised the battery what effect will this have on the alarm system, is it capable of lasting 2 weeks. Will it work? Bit of a pita to lock/unlock.