Everything happens at once? Engine rattle and now voltage drop.

Still on the original Skoda Yeti battery 61Ah 330Ah cold cranking which is now some six years old.

Voltage charging was 14.24 which looked ok and most mornings the battery reads 12.80 volts but recently it has shown 12.48v the next morning?

This has come up many times now so thought it was time to change the battery out. Checked the specific gravity of all the six cells which came up at 1.275 except the last one on by the negative cell which was 1.240.

Took the battery out and it stayed up at 12.80 volts on my work bench.

Swopped it over for a new Varta 77Ah E44 larger battery from my van and exactly the same result with a low voltage the next morning. Took fuse F8 out of the box by the battery compartment and placed an amp meter  across the contacts.

Locked the car with inside lights on and it read 2.98 amps. Lights went off in a minute or so and went down to 0.37 amp. Another eight minutes went by then down to 0.17amp. Eventually after around 15 min having a cuppa it finished off at around 0.16 amp.

 

Is this a realistic drain figure for a Yeti on the battery or have I got a real problem? Did deliberately hot wire the battery the first time to keep the Bolero radio settings the same and later on cut the power off to see if things might boot up correctly. Don't have any software to interrogate the system on a laptop as they cost a couple of hundred pounds for a fully blown unit to plug in. Any thoughts on the battery drain problem which has not stopped the engine starting smartly up as the alternator gets a hundred mile drive to work and back.

A 6 year old battery is doing well. Most reports have shown them failing around 5 years. Mine was showing 11.8v after resting overnight, but it would still start the car easily.

 

There is always a small drain on the battery, from various circuits, the alarm and radio being 2 of them. What amperage those are I haven't got a clue.

 

Why did you "hot wire" the radio? It will keep it's memory/settings for a short time and it doesn't need re-coding if you do disconnect it.

Hi Llanigraham

 

Deliberately connected up the Yeti with another 12 volt car battery before disconnecting the original battery from the car to produce the same conditions of drain before taking the voltage away completely as the radio will re boot up plus the rest of the circuitry. Just a way of seeing if anything had changed as the Yeti has never been disconnected before since purchased new when measuring the current with a Fluke multimeter as my DC clamp meter would only just about show 0.5amp as it goes up to 700amps.

 

 

 

Sorry, but I fail to see why you did that with the radio.

 

I suspect that your battery is goosed, so just replace it.  A draw of less than 1 amp seems about right from what I can see.

Try this guide: https://wiki.bentleypublishers.com/display/tech/Parasitic+draw+testing+through+fuse+panel+VW+technical+bulletin+270711

I've not been using the Yeti as much as I used to (the missus now has an MX-5 and I use a BMW hybrid for commuting) and I'm now regularly finding that the battery is too flat to start the car if it's not been run for a week or so.

 

The battery checked out as "good" on the local battery place's testing machine, but that was after a good 12 hours on the c-tek, however even after a run and everything was shut off, the c-tek "comfort indicator" was showing red (nominally <= 40% charge) so I gave in yesterday and asked them to fit the biggest battery that would fit.

 

I'll see how that goes

@Gyp - Your battery has a weak cell based on your original post.

3 hours ago, KenONeill said:

@Gyp - Your battery has a weak cell based on your original post.

That's what I reckoned.

 

It'll be the 4th Skoda OEM battery that's lost one cell though.

 

Others have taken ages to diagnose (one took literally years as with the other cells charged the battery looked OK), so this time it was an easy decision to simply swap it out.

Edited 15 August, 20178 yr by Gyp
Spellung

Hi chaps

 

If you read my email at the start I took out the original Audi/Skoda stamped 61Ah battery and put in a brand new Varta 77Ah battery which had been on full charge having just received it from Tyna which was ordered the previous day. That read 12.86 volts just like my original battery but when left overnight they both went down to aprox 12.56 volts connected to Yeti. Took both batteries away from Yeti and they stay up at 12.86 volts no problem on my work bench. I can also measure very high amp values on batteries to check their retained power. One evening after a 100 mile run the original battery showed again 12.86 volts and by the next morning it had gone down to 12.25 volts?

There had been some faults reported that the Bolero radio gets itself in a fix and continues to draw current in spite of the actual screen not lighting up when the ignition key is turned off. That was why I been taking the power off the radio unit as a double check.

Will get my hands on the car later this week for two days so will be looking intro the problem further as I have left a brand new battery in the battery compartment.

@K100RS - Can't you explicitly turn a Bolero off, rather than having to rely on the key setting being "off"?

@K100RS I should really do similar tests on mine in case the flat battery after a fortnight isn't the fault of the battery.

 

I think I'll but put the c-tek indicator back on mine and monitor it that way as that way i can check it without unlocking/opening doors which sets off no end of electrical stuff and skews the figures.

 

Shame the c-tek Battery Sense (bluetooth voltmeter & app) is so expensive

Battery drain now seems sorted after playing around with my Fluke multimeter across the battery terminals. Another multimeter for the fuse box having made some connectors that push straight into the fuse holder positions.

 When Yeti is locked up there is the 6 amp serge for the electromechanical door locks. Then it runs around 2.0 amps with the interior lights on. Down to 0.25 amp after around 12 min. Came back 30 min later and the drain was still up at 0.22 amp. Always draining away 220mA on the battery.

Went back to the radio once powered up having already had the power disconnected and then went into the menu and preformed a factory re - set. Went back under the bonnet and measured again. After going through the same current on locking up the car after 12 min it went right down to 70mA and stayed there.

The Bolero was draining over 220 mA before and now only uses 70mA. I consider 70mA a realistic figure to keep the things ticking over when the car is parked up 

Fingers crossed it stays that way in the future. Might be of use to somebody if they come across the same problem. Battery back up to 12.80 volts again in the early morning.

16 minutes ago, K100RS said:

Battery drain now seems sorted...

 

Result!

 

Have to admire your persistence.

70 mA still seems quite high as the VW guide I posted suggests you should be under 40 mA.

 

Might be worth seeing how you get on as the bolero might be a symptom rather than the cause.

Hi Langers2K

 

Was thinking myself after the measurements it did seem a little to much if all is supposed to be off?

As we will stick to Skoda and even might get hold of a later model in a year have decided to bite the bullet and fork out for a Ross-Tech VCDS unit to play with having purchased one Hexcode GS-911 for my BMW bikes and looked at a wealth of information from them. Looked at the dodgy eBay ones for sale and decided it was not worth the risk plus £123 Chinese units from Amazon.  As I do all the servicing on my vehicles it might pay for itself in the future.

Will let you know when I have the new toy to look into the problem further.

On 8/16/2017 at 12:38, K100RS said:

Battery drain now seems sorted after playing around with my Fluke multimeter across the battery terminals. Another multimeter for the fuse box having made some connectors that push straight into the fuse holder positions.

 When Yeti is locked up there is the 6 amp serge for the electromechanical door locks. Then it runs around 2.0 amps with the interior lights on. Down to 0.25 amp after around 12 min. Came back 30 min later and the drain was still up at 0.22 amp. Always draining away 220mA on the battery.

Went back to the radio once powered up having already had the power disconnected and then went into the menu and preformed a factory re - set. Went back under the bonnet and measured again. After going through the same current on locking up the car after 12 min it went right down to 70mA and stayed there.

The Bolero was draining over 220 mA before and now only uses 70mA. I consider 70mA a realistic figure to keep the things ticking over when the car is parked up 

Fingers crossed it stays that way in the future. Might be of use to somebody if they come across the same problem. Battery back up to 12.80 volts again in the early morning.

 

Just to clarify for the thicker amongst us (i.e. me), was the battery drain issue sorted by simply doing a factory reset on the radio?

Hello Gyp

 

Yes you are correct Gyp.

 

Once I had cleared down the Bolero factory reset the current dropped from 220mA to around 70mA and played around with all the fuses in the fuse holder by the steering wheel and again monitored the current drain and after aprox 15 minutes it was reading around 58mA and all seems to be well so far over a thousand miles or so. Have now plugged in my new Ross-Tech VCDS and checked that with no errors showing. Fingers crossed it will not come back to haunt me again. As the Yeti is now six years old that it would not be a bad thing to pull out the fuses and clean them up and put back in with nearly 100,000 miles on the clock.

Hope that helps to answer your question Gyp.

My yeti battery drains after not using the car for 5 days. Soda tell my that the reversing camera is draining the battery but won't repair it under warranty. I often have to leave the car for 10 days and am getting fed up of carrying a spare battery with me so that I can start the car. My plan is to remove the fuse for the camera when leaving the car for long periods and then replacing it when returning to the car. Anyone know which fuse I need to remove?

Considering that the reverse camera is only ON when reverse gear is selected and the ignition is on, I fail to see how it can be draining the battery.
This presumes that it is the original fitting.

I'm the second owner and the Skoda dealer I bought it from was the first owner so I'm assuming that it's an original or at least fitted by them.

Is the car under warranty? If so, on what premise are they refusing to repair a fault on a warranted car?

They are claiming that they didn't fit it and I should take it back to where I had it fitted but I didn't fit it, it was on the car when I bought it and I bought the car from them. They have been the only other owner apart from me.

 

After six months of arguing with them I've had enough. I just want to fix the problem, even if I have to pay for it myself.

Contact Skoda UK, inform them of the issue.

1 hour ago, Rustynuts said:

Contact Skoda UK, inform them of the issue.

 

I have a feeling he isn't in the UK!

Perhaps Pladecalvo could state where he is in the "Location" settings?
And I would suggest that everyone does this as it makes giving advice so much easier when we know where you are.

1 hour ago, Pladecalvo said:

They are claiming that they didn't fit it and I should take it back to where I had it fitted but I didn't fit it, it was on the car when I bought it and I bought the car from them.

Any Skoda dealer should be able to tell you if they were part of the original build of the car, I cannot see a Skoda dealer retrofitting one.
See if that build option code is on the build paper sticker under the carpet in the boot on the nearside.