Damaged battery or ground issue?

[w.shillito]

Hi All,

My 06 Transit connect was rear ended but still drives fine. The same day I was driving the van and I switched on the headlights, all electrics died....everything. A few days later the van is back to life again, including headlights.

I'm not sure if the impact and the issue are related. I have been advised to change the battery as there may be 'dead cells' or internal damage/wear causing a short (age of battery unknown). When the van was totally dead, I stuck my jump pack on the terminals and it made no difference. This leads me to believe its not the battery and a grounding issue?

I cannot find any loose connections. What do you guys think?

Cheers

[Fastdruid]

I've had a similar issue on a bike which turned out to be ground issues.

Turn it on, all the lights work. Hit the starter...everything dies. Turn it off and back on again and everything is fine.

The issue turned out in this case to be corrosion between the earth lead from the battery to the frame, the fix was to remove the lead, sandpaper both the frame and the lead and tighten it back up with some copper-slip (mostly to prevent future corrosion but also in the slight hope that the copper may help conductivity). A new star lock washer with some copper-slip might have worked just as well (I just didn't have any to hand).

ie one of these

[MatrixXXx]

get your battery tested first, if its ok you have a wiring problem

[Penelope Stopit]

If you are sure that the jump battery, leads and their connecting were good, you have proved there is a wiring fault

[Coilspring]

Penelope Stopit said:

If you are sure that the jump battery, leads and their connecting were good, you have proved there is a wiring fault

Agree

[Penelope Stopit]

Coilspring said:

Penelope Stopit said:

If you are sure that the jump battery, leads and their connecting were good, you have proved there is a wiring fault

Agree

I'm in shock, nobody agrees with me, thank you