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Went to start our 1.8 diesal this morning, and its not starting. Just a clicking sound.
As its been sat since the start of lockdown I expect its a dead battery. I think we had a new one about 2 years ago so hopefully it should still be sound, and will still be within warrenty I believe.
I see lots of different choices for charging the battery up - what should I go for? The car is parked on the street, so i will either have to remove the battery or have some type of cordless charger
What does stw recommend?
Left alone for 4 months.
I suggest. A new battery. Youlld only be doing it in October anyway-having splashed out on a fancy charger to get charge into a deeply discharged battery.
If it's clicking it's still got some voltage so it might be ok. But it might not be. New batteries are nice.
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/7604351
Been using this for a few years now. The missus car constantly does tiny journeys and kills the battery, it's been brilliant. What's more, if you do have a problem vehicle/battery, there is a set of terminal you can leave permanently attached and have a female plug discreetly tucked away, but accessible without lifting bonnet!
£30 for a charger seems a decent price to try it out. I'm still surprised a relatively new battery can fully discharge itself whilst sat there. Pretty rubbish really. Maybe asking for a warrenty replacement if it doesn't charge back up.
There is definitely some charge, the central locking wouldn't work, but when I unlocked with the key the alarm went off. With the charger above I will have to remove the battery as parked on the street and can't really have a cable going across the pavement
Is it on a hill? If so, bump start it
Or jump start from another car?
just read the blurb on the AA charger, upto 1.4 diesal.
no hill.
possible to jump, but I've never done it before and I don't want to potentially risk doing anything to our newer car. plus would have to buy leads, which admittedly would be cheaper than a charger
Where are you? Perhaps someone near by can offer the loan of a smart charger just to check how buggered it is.
I'm soton based so if anyone is comfortable loaning that would be really helpful - it does seems a useful thing to have in the garage in case of emergencies
We're near Sheffield and bought a CTEK MXS5.0 during lockdown which served us well.
Would have been willing to lend it to a regular on the gentleman's agreement of "bend it and you buy it".
One of the 'smart' chargers out there will more than likely save it. If it's not sealed, make sure there's enough acid in the cells and let it charge gently for 24-48 hrs. You mentioned an alarm - that's why it's flat.
just read the blurb on the AA charger, upto 1.4 diesal.
worked fine on my 2 litre diesel bimmer with big b'stard batteries in the boot..
I've taken a punt on it, the others I was looking at were quite a bit more and had some variable reveiws on amazon.
re alarm, it only went off when I used the key to get it, I would have noticed if it had been going off for 4 months!
re alarm, it only went off when I used the key to get it, I would have noticed if it had been going off for 4 months!
no - the battery didnt discharge its self .
the alarm works in the back ground all the time and is using your battery all the time to maintain a system on your car .
my experiance with smart chargers is they are great for maintaining a good battery - i use mine on my vehicles when ever parked up for a long period and to condition my leisure batteries once a year
but i find that although they will bring a discharged battery back to life , Soon as it gets cold it will be a liability
Just looking at that blurb about max car size, what's it got to do with the engine - it's not used for dead start, its a charger, not starter. I'd be surprised if any batteries are much more than 80ah, and the max on that is 100ah.. We need a Smudge to the room!!!
I'm no Smudge, but it's about the supplied current with a voltage greater than the battery output for a time. Battery capacity shouldn't come into it.
the only issue is if you try to start the car with the battery charger hooked up
as far as charging the battery makes no odds itll just take longer
but if you hook it up and try to start the car in 10 minutes .... different story
Bigger engine ➡ greater cranking force required to turn over ➡ beefier starter motor ➡ bigger battery.
Maybe. I'd have thought other factors would have had a greater impact on battery size, things like stop / start technology. "Up to a 1.4 diesel" sounds like an oversimplification to me.
Not really my field though, just shooting ideas around.
Dont forget the radio code and other settings before you remove the battery.
Maybe. I’d have thought other factors would have had a greater impact on battery size, things like stop / start technology. “Up to a 1.4 diesel” sounds like an oversimplification to me.
Back from my Halfords days they labelled the chargers by engine size and fuel type really as a way of charging more to customers. The more expensive and larger chargers just charged a battery a bit quicker. We had to charge every battery on the shelf every month or so and we only ever used the smallest, cheapest charger and it never failed to get a full charge into even the massive leisure batteries. The larger ones just do it quicker. Something in my brain recalls them basing the sizes on charging an average battery from a Ford/Vauxhall/Peugeot from nearly flat to 90% in 12 or 24 hours as the way they designated them. Stop/start was just emerging when I left and they had a "Smart" charger for those batteries.
Always worth having a charger. Rarely use ours - used to use it when the kids were smaller and they 'fiddled' with interior lights - my son's now 19 and still fiddling with his car !
In lockdown, the neighbour borrowed it to get their car going. An hour was enough, and he went out and bought his own. Took me a while to find the charger as it was at the back of a shelf.
Back from my Halfords days they labelled the chargers by engine size and fuel type really as a way of charging more to customers.
The older one I had said 'most suitable for batteries in cars up to 1800cc' but it worked regardless, just took longer.
the battery didnt discharge its self
Batteries do discharge themselves, slowly. From the internet, "At a temperature of 80 degrees F. a lead acid battery will self-discharge at a rate of approximately 4% a week."
Batteries do discharge themselves, slowly. From the internet, “At a temperature of 80 degrees F. a lead acid battery will self-discharge at a rate of approximately 4% a week.”
While it was plugged into a car it didn't discharge it's self.
The cars systems discharged it - which is even more reason it's ****ed. Low rate discharge allows it to get even more discharged and the plates get lovely an calcified leading to plate shorts.
The car is parked on the street,
If you want to get a decent amount of charge in (which you probably should) then a small charger is going to take a long time, so that puts you into battery out and charging overnight territory.
We've got one of these 20A chargers that is excellent, if expensive, if you're in a rush. Also got the 4A Maypole which is also good, but very very slow (it takes a long time to ramp up to a sluggish 4A).
If you're going to drive it, a jump starter battery will work. If you've got lots of time then a bigish (20W) solar panel will charge eventually (unless it's sulphated, in which case a smart mains charger will be needed first to try to recover it) and also prevent the same thing happening again.
Something to explain, things have changed with engine starter motors , years ago the bigger the motor the bigger the starter and larger battery to match, what has changed? The starter motors now have gearing inside aswell as the traditional starter/ring gear , this allows the starter to be more compact , lighter and draw less current. Yes the batteries are still big , in part due to all the other electronics that need running , so that is why it is possible to start big engines with small leads and jump batteries.
I have quite a number of vehicles to play with (6+), many of which don’t get used for considerable periods of time. I just pop the leads off if I know I’m not going to use it. Even cheap batteries will keep their charge for ages if not connected.
Okay so a few points :
Jump starting would probably have been a waste of time, I did that with my bus and whilst it allowed it to start and go on a run it was dead again the next morning. Same with my old Civic when it lay up for months.
As said the battery will probably be calcified, smart chargers will do a regen charge that will knock enough of that off for it to hold charge however you may need a replacement when the cold weather comes in. Frankly I'm happy enough brass necking mine as it was only sitting for a few weeks whereas yours is going to be a lot worse. In fact I'd be surprised if it comes back from this but its worth a go.
Yes, chargers will work on any size of battery it's just a case of how quickly they do it.
If you battery is dead then if Halfords doesnt have one of their convenient sales on I'd got to Tayna.
IME luxury car manufacturers target ~3 months airport parking before the battery goes flat due to the ancillary systems running in the background. I'd be surprised if a more normal car was built for that much. If you're not going to use it a long time disconnect a terminal - my mx-5 starts first time every time after winter storage this way.
Maybe best to charge it up then leave it 2 weeks and if it fails to start just get it warrantied sooner rather than later
1: join a recovery service like AA with home start. Price up the battery first in case they offer a replacement at a high price after testing.
2: buy a charger as recommended and take the battery out so you can charge it at home.
HIH
Is it on a hill? If so, bump start it
pretty sure impossible to do with a diesel engine
Is it on a hill? If so, bump start it
pretty sure impossible to do with a diesel engine
That's what I was thinking, there'd have to be enough juice to run up at least a LP and HP fuel pump, and probably the fuel heater and glow plugs will want to come on as a matter of course, at least on a modern diesel. I'm not sure the ECU would play nicely managing the injectors et al in a low volt situation either.
pretty sure impossible to do with a diesel engine
I think you mean automatic
I ran a diesel fiesta with a ****ed battery for 3 months as a poor student and would start it every time by jump starting it. Always parked on a hill....
I have an absolutely ancient optimate, it wasn't cheap when I got it but it's recovered several batteries that you'd assume were for the bin. But also, it's helped just to get me going again which was worth it even if the battery subsequently needed replaced. It probably took a decade or more to pay for itself but the convenience of it made it worthwhile well before that.
It's a little offtopic maybe but, I was a total skeptic but I got one of those tiny modern jumpstart boxes a while back and it's been super useful. Not just for mine when I left the interior light on like a knob (is it just me that knocks these on putting bikes in and out?) but it's done a bunch of cars up and down the street now. And it fits in the coin cubby, and is a power bank for USB to boot. Sorcery. Coronavirus gave it a chance to shine to be fair, lots of barely flat batteries and warm days.
Similarly, I have an old car battery that lives on the charger in the garage, and basically does the same job except with more POWAH! It doesn't hold charge for long enough to really be in a car but it's been very handy and will turn over big diesels etc without fuss. It does not fit in the coin cubby.
As above it's worth trying to get it started with jump leads and drive for at least an hour. I have a pretty knackered battery in my old BMW 3.0 diesel which I link up to a cheap solar trickle charger (about £25 IIRC from Halfords) if I'm not going to be driving for a couple of days and it seems to work fine. It will probably have to be replaced come winter though.
I’ve just had to change the 12v battery in our Zoe. I didn’t even know it had one, but it kinda makes sense when you think about it.
You get a very scary error message (for the owner of a french car) for the prompt 😀
An underrated charger will not always work. I had a cheap one (I think it was up to 1.4l) and to charge a partially discharged battery (think it was a 90a/hr) you have to use the slow setting first, if you put it on fast you could hear it trip out within a few seconds.
On a completely dead battery it just didn't have the oomph to get it started, it would trip out immediately.
At that point I went and bought the Ring Smart charger from Halfords, pricey but it does the job. It's not the highest output but I think the smart features are more valuable than outright speed. The first one went pop after a few months and they replaced it no quibble.
The investment was justified as I use it to do a maintenance charge on the campervan leisure batteries occasionally and for charging old car batteries to run an electric fencer.
On a completely dead battery it just didn’t have the oomph to get it started,
It's not lack of oomph that's the problem there. A completely flat battery looks a lot like a short circuit and an old style charger, which is basically just a transformer and a rectifier, will try to dump everything it can into it causing things to get very hot. A bigger charger just makes things worse. Modern chargers will gently try to get the cell voltage up using a limited current before moving into bulk mode.
The nice people at Ring have documented the process (page 6).
What Spooky and ajaj said.
With the caveat that it depends how dead the battery is. Ive got one spare for jump starting and running 12v stuff in the garage. It was so dead that even the ovwrsized intelligent charger couldn't sense it.
3 days conected in power supply mode (which basicly puts a max of 13.6v or 5A whichever is first) eventually restored it to a point where it will happily jump a car or run anything. It does leak a bit of acid though!
If its just topping it up then a small charger usually works (and you dont want to overdo it either and cause it to vent). If its completely flat you might need something bigger or more inteligent to charge it.
Reporting back in, that little AA charger seems to have done the trick. 4 days to charge. Back in the car this afternoon, started first time.
£30 for a charger seems a decent price to try it out. I’m still surprised a relatively new battery can fully discharge itself whilst sat there. Pretty rubbish really. Maybe asking for a warrenty replacement if it doesn’t charge back up.
You’d be surprised just how many cars only a year or two old will get a flat battery after even a short time parked up; happens where I work all the time.
And at the moment I think we have over two thousand cars on our site and storage areas, so it is an ongoing issue.
Kia Vengas are the worst for going flat quickly, but Mercedes will die completely if the battery goes flat, to the extent that no amount of jumping with a big lead-acid pack or heavy-duty leads connected to another car with a big diesel will get them going.
We have yet another one sat at work right now, the third since I’ve been there.
That’s one a year, but it’s only Mercs we have to send out on a trailer, every other car will start. Eventually. Some have required two jump packs and a set of leads, but they have started!
On some cars a flat battery can require the entire electrical system to need resetting, as the engine management system will throw up multiple error messages - oh, the wonders of modern technology! It can also make it impossible to get into some cars with keycards, like the Renault Kadjar; I tried getting into one with a flat battery, even the mechanical emergency key hidden in the card wouldn’t open the car, we had to get the AA to open it, which is worrying - what happens if you’re out in the wilds somewhere and the weather turns foul?