Flat battery help please !

[mr clifford]

After a holiday for 3 weeks, I came back to find a dead battery. Charged overnight and tried again. Car started first time. Ran the car for nearly an hour. Towards the end of the hour I came up to a red light, the car felt that it was going to cut out so kept reving whilst at the lights. Got the car home and two days later went to start up the car and nothing. Dead again. The battery is 2/3 years old. Have charged the battery again overnight, green light on the charger but nothing. Car turned over 5/6 times, fuel pump started up but then dead again. Having one more try. Charge overnight. I have also cleaned the leads and battery terminals. So lets see tomorrow.

Question.
Having leased cars for my business for more than 20 years I am new to having to come up with battery problems and cant remember what happens in the last life of a battery ?
Any thoughts appreciated !

[GreenV8S]

2/3 years is a bit early for a battery to start playing up but running it flat will substantially reduce its life and could have caused the problem. It sounds as if it is hardl;y holding any charge at all now, so you have the choice of trying to revitalise it with anti-sulphation tablets and carefull recharging, or more realistically just call it a day and get a new one.

[spivvy]

sounds like a dead cell in the battery ,you can test this yourself if it is not a sealed unit ,but be careful

undo all the caps on each cell ,disconnect from car and put a strong wire insulated of course across the terminals if you see any bubbling in any cells then it is duff

or take it to a tyre place and they will test it for you

[mr clifford]

Yep ..dead again.
So new battery it is !

Cheers for the replies guys !

[GreenV8S]

spivvy said:

disconnect from car and put a strong wire insulated of course across the terminals

If you get this wrong you can end up setting fire to the wire (and anything holding it) or welding the wire to the battery, resulting in a lot of heat and possibly an explosion. It's possible to buy special purpose testers for this if you really want to do it. A safer test is just to connect an ordinary load on it such as trying to start the car.

[Hoover.]

Check the battery warranty. IIRC you have the reciept.....

Hoover

[Peter M]

A safer way to test the battery cells is to use a meter from the one of the terminals and probe down into each cell. Use a old piece of wire when probing into the cells as you don't want acid on your meter probes. You should get increments of 2v as you work along the cells.

To try under load, wire up a car headlamp bulb across the terminals and try again.

Pete

[mr clifford]

Hoover. said:

Check the battery warranty. IIRC you have the reciept.....

Hoover

Hi Steve, Many thanks. Since we spoke on the phone I have contacted the Stevenage branch who were very helpful. They out me onto Northampton who are looking into the 4 year warrantee for me. They say that it covers the person not the product ! I have had that fact confirmed by Trading standards too . But, they are looking into it for me and may out of good will just change it `FOC` I will know by tonight hopefully.

But Steve, you are a star for reminding me about the warrantee.

[spivvy]

GreenV8S said:

spivvy said:

disconnect from car and put a strong wire insulated of course across the terminals

If you get this wrong you can end up setting fire to the wire (and anything holding it) or welding the wire to the battery, resulting in a lot of heat and possibly an explosion. It's possible to buy special purpose testers for this if you really want to do it. A safer test is just to connect an ordinary load on it such as trying to start the car.

i have done this before no problem but yes you need a good strong insulated wire

[S2 Giles]

FYI - i had one that only lasted 2-3 years from Halfords.... just didnt buy another from them. The car is used every couple of weeks in the winter, so i put it down to alarm draining & irregular use

[mr clifford]

S2 Giles said:

FYI - i had one that only lasted 2-3 years from Halfords.... just didnt buy another from them. The car is used every couple of weeks in the winter, so i put it down to alarm draining & irregular use

You are probably right .........

[Tripps]

My Cerb managed to total one in just 10 months, I figure the few big repairs on it had meant it was discharged a few times in those ten months, along with a dicky starter motor.

[mr clifford]

Sorted

After a phone call from Hoover, suggesting the battery was still under warrantee I phoned the garage. After some time they agreed to give me a brand new battery Bosch £110 worth free ! Big thanks to Hoover and the Guys at STS Tyres Northampton. Def. rate the attitude of these guys. As for Hoover, well what can you say. The ex owner of your car actually bothers to phone you up after 2 years to offer advice. How good is that ?
Cheers Steve, so off to bed now, plan now is to take it for a `gentle` spin am tomorrow.
TVR`s....love em !