Another thread covers the rapid overnight complete failure of my 1 JO 915 105 AE 570A EN/SAE battery on my Fabia vRS.

No-one seems happy about giving me a jump start so it's off to Argos to buy an engine starter! Why Argos? Because its the only place selling items like this on a local bus route!

Urgent question: Does anyone know what the starting current is likely to be on this vehicle please? I don't want to go to all this effort and expense to discover that the Argos unit, rated @ 150A, is not sufficient to turn the engine! It is deemed suitable for batteries up to 350Ah. The figure of 570A as in the type number above rings alarm bells though, is this an industry way of stating that the capacity is 570Ah?

Whenever the dealership manages to obtain a replacement battery, it is up to me to somehow fire it up and drive 30 miles to their garage!

why has the battery failed?? is there a short circuit somewhere??

tbh i've never known a battery to fail like that

Have you tried disconnecting the battery? I've pimped this post a few times lately, but it's got to be worth a try:

http://briskoda.net/diagnostics-vag-com/weird-problems-simple-solution/122432/

HTH

The battery on my old Mpi died like that, got in the car, could see the digital clock and mileage on the dials, turned the key, then nothing, all power gone. I think the battery went closed circuit.

Another thread covers the rapid overnight complete failure of my 1 JO 915 105 AE 570A EN/SAE battery on my Fabia vRS.

No-one seems happy about giving me a jump start so it's off to Argos to buy an engine starter! Why Argos? Because its the only place selling items like this on a local bus route!

Urgent question: Does anyone know what the starting current is likely to be on this vehicle please? I don't want to go to all this effort and expense to discover that the Argos unit, rated @ 150A, is not sufficient to turn the engine! It is deemed suitable for batteries up to 350Ah. The figure of 570A as in the type number above rings alarm bells though, is this an industry way of stating that the capacity is 570Ah?

Whenever the dealership manages to obtain a replacement battery, it is up to me to somehow fire it up and drive 30 miles to their garage!

I think that you will find that the 570Ah is not the battery's storage capacity, 570Ah would be a huge battery - 57Ah is closer to what you need - there should be some thing written on the case to indicate what the capacity is, also the max current the battery is willing to part with is important - but that will be down to the battery's own internal resistance - that battery's maximum coupling load will be in an ideal world, a bit higher than its original internal resistance.

Anyway, back to getting to Argos (any port in a storm) - this could be a waste of your money - I think that their starters would only help out a run down(ish) battery in a petrol engined car. Are you sure that you are not refering to one of their booster batteries - they tend to be rated, for our benefit in engine capacity - like up to 3500cc petrol engine - etc.

Why not go to Halford's and buy a battery, then get a taxi home - will that not be cheaper than buying a starter that will get a dead vRS back to life. Remember if the battery has failed s/c then its going to whack down anything you connect to it - if its failed o/c then sticking this new battery across it will be okay - but better just to swop it out, drive to dealer and let him swop the new one in then maybe try to sell this new Halford's battery locally.

Edit, after reading Tefl's posting, maybe it would be wise to jump it with the new battery then put the jump leads and new battery in the boot for "later" - to minimise possible damage elsewhere!

I've seen a Ford battery do that in winter, wife started car up okay, drove 10 miles, stopped for 15 minutes shopping - battery dead - RAC was called - "battery has gone O/C" - and he wasn't wrong, anyway he jumped it, she got it home and next day I got a new battery for it. I would guess that the battery had not truely gone O/C but its ability to deliver current had been seriously compromised by its internal resistance going very high due to a structural failure (probably).

Googled "570" and see that it is 70Ah actualy!

Edited 22 September, 200817 yr by rum4mo

Thanks to everyone who offered advice. It is now running, but no Air Con, which is probably locked out on the computer, and more worringly, no power steering! I presume there is a pump somehwere that needs starting, or did a fault on the pump rapidly demolish the battery overnight? The nearest dealer has got a battery being delivered tomorrow afternoon, so with luck it will be sorted out by the middle of the week.

Thanks again everyone, would appreciate any words of wisdom regarding the power steering though! I'm not looking forward trying to negotiate some roadworks on the A14 with loads of lane chnges etc!

How did you get it started? - ie which option/route did you take, if the battery voltage is not too good then that will be why the power steering is not working - need to get the new battery and maybe solve the current drain before the power steering will waken up. Are you meaning that once you managed to start it that it is charging the battery up as you drive - that means that the battery while probably mortaly damaged by the overnight drain, is still able to take a charge (if the overnight drain was not as bad as you think it was initially, then maybe, is that battery was not to blame and then it might last for a while) - still need to get the battery's "health" checked (load tongs), the charging circuit checked and any big current drains checked.

Edited 22 September, 200817 yr by rum4mo

I went into town early this morning and purchased the "RAC Engine starter / charger" so didn't see some of replies until I returned home. It started the engine on around the 2nd attempt so I drove it in and out of my drive a few times trying unsuccessfully to wake up the power steering.

The interesting thing is that I left it on charge with this new charger whilst I had some lunch and have just tested the voltage with a digital meter. Earlier it was 9.88V, it is now 10.5V so whilst my old charger appeared to keep reducing the reading, this one has actually helped a little. We will see after a few hours if enough improvement is being made to get the power steering working again.

Many thanks for your help.

The power steering is electrically driven and will not work correctly with the low battery voltage, however the cause of your initial problem needs to be determined. You may find that even after charging your battery and getting the voltage back to around 13V, that it cannot sustain a high current load and it will go flat again very quickly. If the battery is 4 years old or so, then it may have just failed. I had this on an a previous car, I left it for 5 mins having just driven it 6 miles, got back in and the battery was dead. Charging it helped briefly but it soon needed a new battery.

Ah, I had to go to Argos a few weeks ago (too late for Halfords) when I decided that I needed a "heftier than I had" charger to recharge my Passat battery after a little missadventure! The one I bought was only a £35 8or10amp max charger - but it got my battery up rather sharpish (again branded RAC). If your one, and I can't remember the max charge rate on the one that you've bought, can't lift the voltage up after a few hours then its back to using its "starter" function for you until your problem is solved. Are you thinking about removing the battery and charging it up overnight - maybe on a reduced or auto setting. At least that way you will have learned a bit about the current (no pun) health of the battery and can work out if there is a drain from the car. What I mean is that if the charge current has dropped back after a few hours then at least the battery can take on a charge - if not then its u/s. In case you dont know, if the charging current remains high after maybe 6 hours and the measured battery voltage (charger off) is still low - then it means that some cells have shorted out and no ammount of charging will bring it back up - in fact a lot more charging will probably boil any good cells - but so what other than having a lot of hydrogen gas about - you will not have done any more damage to the battery. Remember to disconnect it from the car when charging - just in case you really do have a constant heavy drain.

All points noted, thanks very much for coming back to me. Yes, my new charger was an RAC one as well, but had the facility to start the engine from flat. It certainly did exactly what it claimed on the box and has now elevated the voltage to a staggering 13V! It now starts just on the battery, and the P/S is restored as forecast. The aircon is still locked out, but I'm sure that will return when the new battery goes in on Wednesday.

So my old charger is definitely faulty, it has given good service over the years though, but seems to have resorted now to removing any power left in the battery. It's the skip for that the next time I pass that way, and I'll keep on trickle charge until I set off on Wed for the proper repair. I agree, I think if I shut the charger off now, then it would be flat again tomorrow.

Very many thanks for all the advice and points put to me.

the newer lead/calcium batteries fitted to cars these days do have a habit of just dying without warning , as has been said , one minute they are ok , the next they are dead

whereas the the older type batteries would just tend to lose charge gradually

After around 5 hrs engine could be started by its own battery, however also discovered after reducing charging to trickle for a couple of hours allowed volts to sink again to 10.00V! Trying a start up on its own battery at this point simply flattened everything, locked out radio, P/S etc, back to square one! Just bears out comments that once it shows signs of failing, you have to sort out a replacement within days or you could get stranded.

Yes, that was why I was sort of trying to warn you against keeping the charger on "for ever" - especially while the car is still connected to the battery - it could still be that there is a high external drain from the battery as well - either could/would cause your nice new charger to get upset or boil the battery dry. Remember if "time is of the essence", you could try getting the battery back up with it disconnected from the car - then leave it disconnected from charger - then check its voltage (charge it fully before doing this) so that you will then have some facts to tell your garage, I'd hate to think that you end up dealing with a garage that just swops batteries and sends you on your way - that might work 100% - but there could be another problem (ie root cause of failure) and that would have you back to where you are now within a day! (I'm just playing safe - but your garage might be spot-on).

Thanks for that advice. I decided to use a timeswitch to give it a 3 hr stint early this morning and late evening. This might just be enough to keep it out of the "black hole" where everything is locked out again! As long as I can tickle it into life again in the morning, we should be OK.

I've also kept a log of events to show the fitter so hopefully he will check the standing current drain with only components energised that we have no control over.

Many thanks, will let you know what happens.

Now done the ultimate test, disconnected the battery showing 13.0 volts on a digital voltmeter, two hours later it is down to 10.5 volts. Conclusion battery definitely knackered, reason, possibly old age, or another fault on car which may not show up until new unit is fitted tomorrow

Anything unusual discovered tomorrow, I'll obviously publish on forum.

The Sequel, I Hope!

New battery fitted this morning, pulled up at Garage, took less than 5 minutes to book in and sign forms, technician couldn't start vehicle despite it being on boost charge prior to departure plus a 15 mile trip!

They found 9 faults on board that they could not account for, but had to reset them to wait and see if anything else comes up before service visit in 3 weeks time.

Technician reports a possible cause may lay in the fact that the "cables are bunched" in the engine compartment, this is a known gremlin in the earlier models. In heavy rain, water gets down the middle of the harness, never dries out, and attacks the insulation causing tracking or even a fire! They have had a vRS in previously where the wiring had flashed over and the owner was lucky not to have had an very expensive repair on his hands. More investigation will be done on its next visit!

It seems that just one thing hasn't reset properly i.e. the windows used to wind all the way up or down with a short press on the button, you now have to keep a finger on the switch all the time because as soon as pressure is released, then the window stops. I think that this is an option on the computer, so cannot do anything about it myself.

The A/C took half the journey home before it would switch on, but is fine now. The cost of all this? £175.30 VAT inc.

...It seems that just one thing hasn't reset properly i.e. the windows used to wind all the way up or down with a short press on the button, you now have to keep a finger on the switch all the time because as soon as pressure is released, then the window stops. I think that this is an option on the computer, so cannot do anything about it myself.

http://briskoda.net/technical-guides/resetting-one-touch-windows/61808/

....The cost of all this? £175.30 VAT inc.

Ouch! For a battery replacement and a fault code read and clear!! :eek:

(sounds about right for a stealer)

Yes, battery just short of £100 + 45 minutes to fit and reprogramme etc + Gordon's share! I had seen previous threads on here that vRS replacement battery was in the order of £95 + VAT + any labour!