duff battery

shiney · Post by **shiney** » 29 Aug 2005, 17:08

More a general question.
Came back from 10 day holiday and battery is dead
I am going to try a recharge but as it draines power Is it better to replace it completely and if so what is the best make?
Ta
Xantia senstation TD 1999

MW · Post by MW » 29 Aug 2005, 17:47

It's an odd time of year for a dead battery to show itself. Might be as well to get it tested before you invest in a new one, because things like alarm or ECU faults can drain them. My dad's Rover had its battery drained because somehow the boot light was permanently on.
My ten year old Xant is still on its second battery, which I reckon is pretty good going. My present one, now five years old, was a bog-standard Halfords job, and very good it's been too.

Post by **Peter.N.** » 29 Aug 2005, 23:21

How old is it? Batteries can loose a tremendous proportion of their capacity and still keep working, providing they start first time! but if the battery is old and low on capacity, leaving it for 10 days could do it. If its flat, the chances are that it wont be much good if you recharge it. When you have charged/replaced it, disconnect one lead and put an ammeter between the lead and battery,. with the ignition off you shouldn't have more than a few milliamps flowing.

fastandfurryous · Post by **fastandfurryous** » 30 Aug 2005, 03:46

Batteries do seem to last for a fair while these days, and then die without any notice at all. Even just 10 years ago, it was common to have a "weak" battery, that kinda worked, but was a bit reluctant on cold mornings etc. Now, they seem to work well for about 6 years, then die.
Best place I have found to get batteries is Lucas (LSUK) direct outlets, as you can usually halve the Halfrauds price. Last one was a mahoosive truck-sized one for a 4-litre diesel in my landrover: just under £40 if I remember right.

Post by **Peter.N.** » 30 Aug 2005, 04:07

Its because they use a lot of thin plates, so even when the battery is on its last legs it has a fair plate area. It can have lost possibly 90 percent of the active material but still have enough to start it at the first try but very little reserve capacity.

Kowalski · Post by **Kowalski** » 30 Aug 2005, 04:43

My '97 is on it's original battery, which doesn't seem to be marvelous but it gets used every day. One day it will die completely, we'll see whether it survives this winter or not.

shiney · Post by **shiney** » 30 Aug 2005, 13:04

Thanks for those responses, may not be as dead as I thought then I 'll try this battery for a few weeks as it isn't winter yet and get the thing tested at the local garage.
Thanks for the halfords tip. Mind you I found my local one does a price match and sometimes it gets them to knock quite a few bob off stuff!

Post by **RichardW** » 30 Aug 2005, 13:29

Only time I've had a battery go recently it did just that - no warning, had used car (BX TD) earlier in day, went to start it, glowplugs OK, went to crank everything went dead, battery was reading about 6V.
We had a duff battery on our Visa Special - it got progressively worse until it needed bump starting almost every day (we had a steep drive!). Mind you, 2 years before that we had swapped that battery onto the 4 Cyl Visa we also had as it appeared to be a better battery, but it wouldn't even turn that over - the 652cc engine was really easy to spin over...!!!

jeremy · Post by **jeremy** » 30 Aug 2005, 17:48

Sure it was the battery Richard? Cae back from holiday and went to start BX - fired instantly but died - and wouldn't run properly before I flattend the battery. Primed it properly (Seems you need to push quite hard with the Purflux filter/primer) and got it going with the jump start. I then drove it around for 5 miles or so to charge it and put it away.
Next day I go to start it and as soon as I turn the key it went totally dead. Meters at 7.5 volts - but in fact the positive terminal was dirty and after cleaning it started on its own with no further problems!
I know the original problem is probbably a minor air leak and one day I'll hunt it - it has done something similar before when its been left for a week or so. This time the battery was probably weaker as I fitted a new radio which is not on the ignition circuit and on removing the fascia before going away I found that it has a flashing light which stays on all the time!
Jeremy

brianr.uk · Post by **brianr.uk** » 01 Sep 2005, 03:00

hi shiney,whatever you do don't buy a battery from halfrauds.my battery on my 1993 xantia 1.9td gave up one sunday in a shopping centre multistorey car park and the only place open was halfruads and they charged me £65 at gsf they are about £45
BRIAN

Sl4yer · Post by **Sl4yer** » 01 Sep 2005, 04:20

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by brianr.uk</i>

hi shiney,whatever you do don't buy a battery from halfrauds.my battery on my 1993 xantia 1.9td gave up one sunday in a shopping centre multistorey car park and the only place open was halfruads and they charged me £65 at gsf they are about £45
BRIAN
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Thats good advice. But when the battery died on the Volcane (suddenly, and on a day when I happened to have come home) I was glad of Halfrauds still being open at 7.30pm to sell me a new one! At least it has a 4-year warranty, so it should outlast the car.... [;)]
At least I got lots of Brownie points for repairing the totally dead car within a matter of hours! [8D]