Battery Issues

[louseafur]

hi people, a little help and advice would be appreciated from anyone with a few spare brain cells or minutes.

 

My P reg galaxy ghia 2lt petrol had a flat battery last Thursday, breakdown chap said it was a bad earth which he sorted an it should now be fine, apparently my alternator was working fine and the battery was charging at 14.3v. took it for a 40 min spin to make sure it was fully charged no problems, used it a few other times that day no problems. went back to the car 24 hours later.... flat battery. got breakdown out again charged it back up, again he said alternator was fine and it was charging ok. since then i have not left it for more than 12 hours and have had no problems, till this morning, flat again which means it has drained in about 10 hours. is it worth just changing the battery and hoping that will cure all or is it more likely to be something draining it. There is no visible signs that something is draining it (all lights go out and nothing in non working power sockets) and for it to go flat in 10 hours i would assume it would have to be something quite big??

 

not sure if this is anyway connected but since i got it a month ago i have been having idle revving issues too, doesn't happen all the while but sometimes when left idle the battery light comes on an it shuts down, after looking through 60 plus pages on here i have found similar posts but not for my make, i only ask if it is connected because when breakdown bods were recharging me the galaxy idled like a dream at 750 with no issues.

 

thanks in advance for any help... and please treat me like a simpleton, my mechanical wizardry ended about 10 years ago when i got rid of my 205

[RADIOTWO]

hi people, a little help and advice would be appreciated from anyone with a few spare brain cells or minutes.

 

My P reg galaxy ghia 2lt petrol had a flat battery last Thursday, breakdown chap said it was a bad earth which he sorted an it should now be fine, apparently my alternator was working fine and the battery was charging at 14.3v. took it for a 40 min spin to make sure it was fully charged no problems, used it a few other times that day no problems. went back to the car 24 hours later.... flat battery. got breakdown out again charged it back up, again he said alternator was fine and it was charging ok. since then i have not left it for more than 12 hours and have had no problems, till this morning, flat again which means it has drained in about 10 hours. is it worth just changing the battery and hoping that will cure all or is it more likely to be something draining it. There is no visible signs that something is draining it (all lights go out and nothing in non working power sockets) and for it to go flat in 10 hours i would assume it would have to be something quite big??

 

not sure if this is anyway connected but since i got it a month ago i have been having idle revving issues too, doesn't happen all the while but sometimes when left idle the battery light comes on an it shuts down, after looking through 60 plus pages on here i have found similar posts but not for my make, i only ask if it is connected because when breakdown bods were recharging me the galaxy idled like a dream at 750 with no issues.

 

thanks in advance for any help... and please treat me like a simpleton, my mechanical wizardry ended about 10 years ago when i got rid of my 205

 

Hi Louseafur

 

That does seem a bit of a funny one !

 

Before you just change the battery you need to check if there is any thing draining the battery, I know you say there is no lights etc on but have you checked every thing Boot light, Glove box light !

 

If you 100% sure there is nothing on you will need to put a ammeter in line and check for current draw and how much, it will not take too much to drain a battery over night, but there is some other things you said the braekdown chap said there was a bad earth ! there could be another one, also when you say it is flat ! is it totally flat, or is there a bit of duce that tries to turn it over.

 

So assuming you have a multimeter, first check the current draw and report back.

 

ps where abouts are you in the east mids ?

 

Radiotwo

[chrispb123456]

hi people, a little help and advice would be appreciated from anyone with a few spare brain cells or minutes.

 

My P reg galaxy ghia 2lt petrol had a flat battery last Thursday, breakdown chap said it was a bad earth which he sorted an it should now be fine, apparently my alternator was working fine and the battery was charging at 14.3v. took it for a 40 min spin to make sure it was fully charged no problems, used it a few other times that day no problems. went back to the car 24 hours later.... flat battery. got breakdown out again charged it back up, again he said alternator was fine and it was charging ok. since then i have not left it for more than 12 hours and have had no problems, till this morning, flat again which means it has drained in about 10 hours. is it worth just changing the battery and hoping that will cure all or is it more likely to be something draining it. There is no visible signs that something is draining it (all lights go out and nothing in non working power sockets) and for it to go flat in 10 hours i would assume it would have to be something quite big??

 

not sure if this is anyway connected but since i got it a month ago i have been having idle revving issues too, doesn't happen all the while but sometimes when left idle the battery light comes on an it shuts down, after looking through 60 plus pages on here i have found similar posts but not for my make, i only ask if it is connected because when breakdown bods were recharging me the galaxy idled like a dream at 750 with no issues.

 

thanks in advance for any help... and please treat me like a simpleton, my mechanical wizardry ended about 10 years ago when i got rid of my 205

Hi there

My advice would be to get a discharge test done on the battery first most places that sell batteries will have one but make sure you charge up the battery first you cant test it if its flat, this may be a quicker fix than looking for a fault on the car that it may not have :huh:

[louseafur]

thanks for the replies

 

on further inspection the battery looks void of water so just popping out now to get some, will get it started after that an see if it makes any difference. will unplug the battery tonight as well and see how it is in the morning when i will hopefully have time to look into some of your recommendations.

 

fingers crossed it also sorts the idling issue out as that is the bigger pain, would a faulty ECU fuse be anything to do with that?? or am i getting that confused with another 3 letter thing that has been mentioned ref doddgy idling??

 

will keep checking the forum in the meantime for more pearls of wisdom an post back my results to hopefully help anyone else out.

 

oh and im in the norfolk area radio (not paticularly east midlands... guess a profile change is in order hehehe)

Edited April 19, 2010 by louseafur

[chrispb123456]

thanks for the replies

 

on further inspection the battery looks void of water so just popping out now to get some, will get it started after that an see if it makes any difference. will unplug the battery tonight as well and see how it is in the morning when i will hopefully have time to look into some of your recommendations.

 

fingers crossed it also sorts the idling issue out as that is the bigger pain, would a faulty ECU fuse be anything to do with that?? or am i getting that confused with another 3 letter thing that has been mentioned ref doddgy idling??

 

will keep checking the forum in the meantime for more pearls of wisdom an post back my results to hopefully help anyone else out.

 

oh and im in the norfolk area radio (not paticularly east midlands... guess a profile change is in order hehehe)

Hi again IAC "idle air control" will give a dodgy unstable tick over, usually removing and cleaning it with some decarboniser will usually cure it

[louseafur]

was dead again this morning, had enough power to attempt what sounded like half a turnover, so while i look for a multimeter or a place that does a discharge test im going to recharge the battery and then unplug it... hopefully it will still lose charge when unpluged??

[RADIOTWO]

was dead again this morning, had enough power to attempt what sounded like half a turnover, so while i look for a multimeter or a place that does a discharge test im going to recharge the battery and then unplug it... hopefully it will still lose charge when unpluged??

 

Hi Again

 

Sounds like you just topped it up without charging, just topping it up will not do a lot, but make sure you give it a good charge !

 

Giving the car a quick run round the block won't charge a battery, you need to do at least 100 miles, or charge it off the car with a decent

charger poss for about 24 hrs, but monitor the charge voltage, and keep a eye on the levels

 

The reason I asked about your location, is I have all the test kit, and was going to test it for you but you are a bit further away.

 

Radiotwo

[louseafur]

bless ya radio.. prob only did about 40 ish miles to recharge yesterday so time permitting will aim for 100 next recharge. thanks again, will let you know the results

[zorgman]

iac is just behind rocker cover to the left of middle held in by 2 bolts, give it a good clean and that should cure it

[big_kev]

Sounds like a knackered battery to me :(

[louseafur]

well after another jump this morning an a 2 hour 105 mile trip to charge the battery i took it to kwik fit for a free test, start capacity was 39% and the battery was unserviceable. So new battery now and fingers crossed problem solved, got myself a little multimeter so will keep an eye on things over the next few days to make sure it isnt being drained as well.

 

hopefully then i can get on and sort the IAC out...

 

cheers for the tips and info peeps... im sure i will be picking your brains further in the next few months

[frogeye]

Hi,

 

If cleaning your idle valve doesn't sort your problems, try unplugging the MAF sensor (just above the air filter) to see if that improves things. I had issues like this with my 2.0l aspen.

 

Frogeye