Flat Battery

[jims-terrano]

Well I've just come back from the place where I bought the battery from last year. It seems to go from bad to worse. This morning on the phone he told me to turn the lights on and drain the battery to 12.2V and then leave on charge until 4:00pm and bring the car to him. So did all this and the bloke put a little meter on it and agreed that it wasn't charged. He then drop tested it and said the battery is fine it's the car and proceeded to tell me that the alternator doesn't charge the battery it just puts a surface charge in it. He then asked why I was looking at him strangely:nenau and he also says the starter sounds tight to him
Anyway he asked me what I thought about it so I told him that he'd sold me a cheap crap battery last year and it is broken, I thought you would say that so watch this. He then put the drop tester on again and said look at the meter reading 9? (what ever that means) and said he nromally leaves this on for 15 seconds but he was going to leave it on for 30 seconds. The car then locked it's self and refused to start He got me started with a little booster thing and told me to leave the battery on charge and that i have a fault on the car.
Driving home the ABS unit is now hissing like a thing possessed:doh, what the hell has he done!!!!
Anyway the charger is on and I'll leave it over night and see what tomorrow brings. If he has some how damaged the ABS what on earth can I do and how can I prove it was him

Any comments would be appreciated

Jim T

 

[tezzer]

hi jim, the guy sounds a right wally, first did he sell you the correct battery last year? ie the right amp hour etc

did he check output of alternater?

it does'nt take 2 minutes to tell whats wrong really, assuming it's the battery or alternater;

as for abs light hav'nt got a clue to be honest, cant understand why it would come on, unless it's sods law and there is a problem with abs system. :nenau





tezzer

 

[jims-terrano]

Strange thing about the ABS unit hissing away is the light hasn't come on once which is why I think (hoping) it may of had something to do with the battery being drained.
It's a 95 amp battery.

What tests can I do my self? I've used a multimeter and get 14.2V with the engine running.

Jim T

 

[Deleted Member S]

Sorry to hear this Jimdo you have a multi meter ? if you do I would start the T2 up & check that the alternator is putting into your battery, if it's reading 13.5 - 14.5 then it's putting enough charge into the battery:thumb2 tight starter motornever heard of that before

 

[wildbri]

Hi jim, if you are getting over 14 volts your alternator is ok, is the problem battery loosing its
charge? You could borrow a battery and see if you have the same problem, might be some leakage in the car. I had this problem with a nissan, it turned out the tow bar wiring was faulty. Can you swop the battery with a friends, that way it would test both battery and your terrano. regards....bri

 

[ern1e]

He then put the drop tester on again and said look at the meter reading 9? (what ever that means) and said he nromally leaves this on for 15 seconds

hi jim when you say it was on 9 volts did it hold it or start to drop lower because if it starts to drop its knackered and as for the battery it should be a 250 its a common number amongest local car spare shops if you need anymore numbers i can get them from work.

 

[Toolbox]

Firstly Jim very bad practise to drop test a battery when it’s still connected, can play havoc with the cars electronics.
The 9 would have been 9 volts, if it maintained 9 volts then the battery should be ok.

If you have an amp meter then you can measure any battery drain by disconnecting one of the terminals and placing the meter in series between the battery terminal and battery.
You will always have a very small drain from the radio memory and alarm etc but this shouldn’t be any more than ½ an amp.