Dead battery

[AlRaven]

Been on hols and Chim was on a Ctek charger most of that time. I come back, disconnect charger and expect car to start no probs - nothing, no sounds, no lights on dash apart from one red light. Strange, I think, so I reconnect the Ctek charger, which shows no lights on it at all, so change its fuse, still dead (although my son said the Ctek was showing lights up to 3 days before I came back).

So I buy a new Ctek MXS 5.0 and after about an hour it tells me the battery won't keep a charge, so I'm guessing my 2 year old battery has died totally (4th in 6 years) and killed my old Ctek in the process.

Any way of recovering the situation as otherwise I'm going to have to get garage (HHC Hexham?) to come to house and fit new one (no way I'd try myself as i have a dodgy back) which sounds seriously expensive.

Other point is that could something else be causing the problem?

[QBee]

How long between starts, ie how long were you away?
This should not be happening, so it suggests you have a power drain somewhere.
If it was me I would call out an auto-electrician to come to you to check the car and if needed fit a new battery.
Might just be worth sticking a proper battery charger on the old battery first.......

Edited by QBee on Saturday 31st August 18:08

[jojackson4]

QBee said:

How long between starts, ie how long were you away?
This should not be happening, so it suggests you have a power drain somewhere.
If it was me I would call out an auto-electrician to come to you to check the car and if needed fit a new battery.
Might just be worth sticking a proper battery charger on the old battery first.......

Edited by QBee on Saturday 31st August 18:08

+1. ^

[AlRaven]

I was away 13 days, I think you're right, it seems like more than a simple dead battery so I'm a bit reluctant to just swap. Strange that the charger was working and 3 days later both battery and charger seem dead.

I see that the RAC do a battery fitted free service for members for a Chim for £122 - anyone used this service?

[jojackson4]

Get son to remove your battery and get it on a proper charger for 24 hours and test what it has init 24hours later
If its less than 12v it's not looking good for you battery
As for your trickle charger if that gone tits up it may have just draned the battery with a internal fault

[QBee]

jojackson4 said:

Get son to remove your battery and get it on a proper charger for 24 hours and test what it has init 24hours later
If its less than 12v it's not looking good for you battery
As for your trickle charger if that gone tits up it may have just draned the battery with a internal fault

Agreed, except:
Don't take it out. If you are worried, disconnect it, but charge it in the car with a proper battery charger.
Chim batteries are fiddly to take out. You have to unbolt the battery box fom underneath the car, lift the whole box and battery so the bolts clear the holes in the car floor, and slide the whole thing out.

[PVN]

AlRaven said:

I see that the RAC do a battery fitted free service for members for a Chim for £122 - anyone used this service?

My local tyre and battery place did a supply and fit battery at my home address for under £100. It may be worth checking locally.

PVN

[AlRaven]

Cheers all, but it gets curiouser (for a mechanical numpty like me anyway). I've still been trying with the new charger through the lighter socket, and it would go through a few stages and then tell me the battery was sh*gged, however, I noticed that the immobiliser light had come back on again so I thought maybe all is not lost and turned the key - Nada, nothing. However when I plugged the charger back in to the lighter socket I noticed the socket light flickered a bit so I thought maybe a bad connection there?

Now, I had half dragged the battery box out of it's cave for no apparent reason apart from pretending to look like I was doing something and thought I'd connect the charger direct to the battery (cue some big clicks)- amazingly after about an hour the car started no problem but the charger was red hot!

So question is: Have I fried something by connecting direct to battery and how do I charge it in future?

P.S. As I am incompetent I tried my other standard tactic of buttering the car up as it had obviously taken the huff having been ignored for two weeks, I showed it the new number plate and new Leven rear badge I had bought for it and I touched up a few chips - maybe this did the trick it and it fried the chargers just to make a point.

[Tyre Tread]

Probably the cigarette lighter connection was poor or broken so it wasn't charging.

The charger will have got warm if it was working hard (High current levels) so unless it was too hot to keep your hand on it then I wouldn't worry.

Does your charger have a meter showing level of current its drawing? If so, what was it drawing when you connected it to the battery and what's it drawing now when you connect it?

[AlRaven]

I have to say it was a bit too hot to hold, when reading the instructions it states the black clamp should be connected to the body rather than the negative terminal but being a TVR there's no chassis point within reach in the foot well (or is there?).

I'm afraid there's no meter on the charger,but I notice in the bible, Steve Heath makes the point that using trickle chargers on maintenance free batteries can be a problem as surprisingly they produce too high a voltage (over 14.4v).