Warrior193

The fact that the charger is cycling in the way you say suggests 1 of 3 things to me - 1 - The self-discharge rate is high - I.e. battery has an internal fault. or 2- There is some connected load that is triggering the cycling. or 3 - Something you are doing when you check the charger is waking up control modules on the vehicle With a good battery and no electrical load, I'd expect the charge rate to go to zero once the battery reached full charge, then perhaps up to 100 milliamps maintenance charge.

Take a look at Koni active, they should be a simple swap.

What I am seeing is a flatter discharge curve after the battery was changed - which looks to be the gap in the trace around midday on the 13th. I'm estimating a difference of approx. 0.2 volt, see how it goes I guess.

Because front drums were usually twin leading shoe for extra braking assistance.

I can recall when it was usual (in competition cars) to put a very bright, red 'idiot' light somewhere in the line of vision for warning of oil pressure failure, as the driver was normally too busy with what's going on outside to worry too much about gauges. The same reason applies to having the rev-counter max. tell-tale at vertical. I shouldn't worry too much about the few seconds that oil pressure takes to build before the light goes off - it's an unavoidable feature of oil draining out of the feed galleries while the engine is stopped. The only way to prevent this would be to have an auxiliary electric oil pump (like a modern, EFI system fuel pump) to pre-charge the galleries before engine start. AFAIK, only F1 engines do this. Obviously, as wear occurs in an engine and tolerances increase, it may take a little longer for the oil pressure to build - but this is likely to be balanced by the cooler oil having a higher viscosity. I recall that when synthetic oils started to be introduced, it was not recommended to mix them with petroleum-based oils - it was considered important to ensure all old oil was flushed out of the engine. I could well be wrong, but I don't recall any advice that engines from the 70s were unsuitable for semi-synthetics or synthetics, apart from (I think) that it was ok to mix oil types with the semi-synthetics.

Is it me - or do parts of that battery look a little too dirty for a brand new one? E.g.. around the negative post and above the clamp-bar - that clamp bolt doesn't look like it's been moved for a while either.

Hello Mark, for reference, did you change the battery before Dec 9?

I'm sure that one of those is a camera.

Hello, welcome to the forum. Are you sure there is no camera fitted at all? If you take a close look, from the front at the masked area at the top of the screen, (directly in front of the rear-view mirror) can you see a small lens?

Why not try putting it on charge with the hood closed? There is often a gap sufficient to pass a charger mains supply cable to outside the vehicle. This is what I do with the Octavia and Fabia.

Thanks, SHMBOs Fabia is CHZC so possibly not affected - but I will keep an eye on it for this issue.

@DR79 Are you sure your Fabia is a Mk IV and not a facelift Mk 3? Your title section has the year as 2020.

Do the new tyre sizes moulded into the sidewalls exactly match the fronts? Do you know if your TPMS is direct or indirect type? - To explain, the indirect type operates by calculating the tyre rotational speed through the ABS system, while the direct system reads actual tyre pressures via wireless sensors fitted to the wheels.

While not ideal, the lower capacity battery maintainer (charger?) will still keep the battery in better condition than without - it would only affect the length of time it takes to attain a full charge - and possibly any test function your Optimate maintainer has. Re. why your using a smart charger was setting off your wife's Kia - could it have been because the alarm was sensing the hood was open while charging?

@Mattn00b are you able to post your engine code? you can find it on your V5 document (four letters in front of engine number)

The only really reliable way to test the condition of the battery is - 1 - Give it a full charge with suitable charger, ideally, a 'smart' charger. 2 - After full charge achieved, remove surface charge by allowing battery to stand for around 12 hours - or by using a load such as headlights, etc, for a short period. If the test is done while battery is connected in vehicle, you need to ensure that all control modules have been allowed sufficient time to enter sleep mode. 3 - Test battery condition with specialist battery condition tester (not expensive) - or an 'old school' high-rate discharge tester.

Assuming (from your model year) that you do not have the SOC function in your Maxi dot display, a reasonable indication of falling battery state is the stop/start frequently not shutting the engine down when stopped in neutral - IIRC, message displayed in 'vehicle status' will be 'load too high' or something similar.

From my understanding, the only critical information for the adaptation is the battery type (fleece or EFB) and capacity - the serial number can be simply changed by one digit to indicate the battery has been changed.

That is very likely correct operation of the smart alternator - the only real way to check alternator output on these micro-hybrids is live data on a run - in particular, checking the output while in energy recuperation mode. Another way could be to temporarily disconnect the battery monitoring module on the battery negative clamp.

Be aware that some Halfrauds branches are apparently unable - or unaware of the necessity to do a battery adaptation when fitting a new battery.

Just a note, I only changed the glove compartment to led around 6 months after I fitted the trunk lamps - so that reference may be coincidental. I did encounter a lot more difficulty in getting the glove compartment led to physically fit correctly - mostly due to having to work by feel.

@thisischeese I got my ones for the Octavia from a supplier on the Bay - Take a look at Supersuperstore (195773) These worked with no issues - trunk and glovebox.

Assuming poster meant as a test - Slow down to as low a speed as possible in gear, then drop the hammer and look for increased revs without matching increase in speed - works better uphill.

Either type will do, EFB is cheaper, AGM is supposed to be superior and last longer - but is considerably more expensive. Be aware that you will need to adapt a new battery into the BCM, particularly if you change from one type to the other. Do you know if this was done correctly when the battery was replaced under warranty? That AGM really should have lasted longer than that.

No, the resisters are usually mounted in the light section itself - I had the same adaptors supplied with my LEDs - which worked without problems (without the adaptors) in the both Octavia and Fabia. The adaptors are for fitting to vehicles with different cabling. The only issue I had was having to trim the aperture a little so that they fitted correctly. @thisischeese I will look up the details of the supplier I got mine from.