Battery Problems

Honest John Back Room » Technical matters
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Mon 19 Feb 2018 01:42
Battery Problems - macski

My Alfa started giving my a code warrning fault, I knew from previous experience the battery was failing, so ordered a new one. It is now on its third battery, the last one only lasted three years, but while the right battery for the car according to the listings, it was a lot smaller then the one itr replaced.

So when the (larger) battery arrived I ran a check on the battery and the meter tells me the battery and charging system working with no faults, Charged the battery and it charged fine, but the fault code on the car stopped,

So anyone has any thoughts on why the car was complaining?

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Mon 19 Feb 2018 03:43
Battery Problems - edlithgow

I dunno much about fault codes, since I've managed to avoid having a car new enough to be capable of generating them.

From an idle onlookers point of view, they seem to be often more trouble than they are worth.

However, I suspect that if you want anyone to does know about fault codes to help you, it'd be a good idea to tell them what the fault code actually was.

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Mon 19 Feb 2018 08:25
Battery Problems - skidpan

On some cars the battery needs coding to the ECU, simply fitting one will normally mean the car works fine but has lights on the dash.

If the car works now with no lights why worry.

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Mon 19 Feb 2018 08:33
Battery Problems - gordonbennet

In my experience smaller (capacity/cca) batteries never last long and are prone to causing other issues, three years from a battery if it was indeed low spec/quality sounds about right.

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Mon 19 Feb 2018 20:40
Battery Problems - macski

Code was somewhere along the lines of VLC or VCL failure.

I am not worried just wondered as the tests on the battery came out OK and it has charged fine too.

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Mon 5 Mar 2018 12:20
Battery Problems - bluezzr1100

Not wishing to gloat but my vauxhall astra has a battery which is now 10 years old and working fine even in this cold weather. A battery should have about 14V across it even with all the lights and heated windows etc on-make sure revs are at least 1000rpm when measuring because at idle it will drop a bit. Some modern cars e.g. Hoda have a two stage charging system to save fuel and voltages of about 12.5 to 13V may be expected. Curiously this rises to 14V when all the lights are switched on so some sort of intelligent charge/load system is in action here.

If the voltage is over 15V (check at high revs) it will fry your battery and you will have been changing a lot of headlamp bulbs!

Perhaps invest in a more expensive battery if the charging system is ok?

rgds

ZZ

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