Battery causing various errors

[Cornish_Lad]

Last Sunday, my 2015 Yeti (with start / stop) flashed up a message on the infotainment screen stating 12v battery low, and infotainment would be disabled. 
 

My Yeti started ok, but over the next 3 or 4 days started throwing up ABS errors, Start / Stop Errors and all sorts of warning lights. 
 

Decided to use my Lidl Ultimate Speed smart charger (on the AGM mode) to see if it could charge / revitalise the battery. Upon plugging it in, it was showing less than 25% health and reading 11.8v. 
 

Checked it just over 8hrs later, and it was showing 100% health and 12.8v - yippee I thought. 
 

However, despite using Carista to clear the stored faults, they keep returning, and my Yeti has gone into limp mode 🙁 

 

Any thoughts ? I know that Skoda and VW’s are finicky about failing batteries and will happily throw up all sorts of errors and problems. 
 

Should I replace the battery, or am I looking at a trip to the local Skoda specialist ?

 

 I’ll add Carista screenshots shortly - but I find it hard to believe that a failing battery can damage modules etc  🙁 Report incorrect data, yes …

 

None of these errors were present until I had the dreaded 12v warning ..

[Breezy_Pete]

I'd have a few more goes with the charger, since you have it.

[Cornish_Lad]

Carista screenshots below

[nta16]

My pet subject - car battery will start the car and lights seem bright enough but the car's computers don't like the battery so low.

 

8 hours at fast charge might have been too higher charge at too fast, for a deep recharge you want a long  slow low recharge especially if the battery was still on the car and the battery had a long, slow discharge.

 

As Wino has put recharge your battery again, preferably off the car at a low slow rate for as long as possible.  If your charger has a 'recondition mode' or similarly named use that but it might take a long time with even the battery off the car and longer if the battery is still connected to the car as the computers are still doing loads of stuff even with the car parked up and then there's the alarm and immobiliser and power for all the bits that hold data, radio  stations, etc.. 

 

The modern fashion for instant charging doesn't always work well, certainly don't use a booster type charger.

 

I do not know Carista but the lower level scan tools or their programs don't seem to wide codes well and even when they do they seem to remain as history in te car until a higher level scan tool is used.

 

Get the battery properly and fully charged, clear the codes, drive the car for a few day and check for codes again.

 

[Urrell]

Sounds to me a coincidence you also have a reluctor ring failed.

[gumdrop]

I had a few problems with low battery charge, and stuff apparently being turned off to save electrickery.

C-tek charger on over the weekend battery ok but the radio had a fault (another story)

[nta16]

The problem is the VW/Skoda over-complicated car computer programs are not as clever as thought or intended and throw up all sorts of wobbles because of this.

 

It is difficult for some to accept that if the car battery is in a low state of charge it will still start the car and the lights seem bright enough but the computer will not be happy and can throw wobbles.

 

Also with the fashion for instant fixes a quick fast high recharge of the battery (still connected to the car so still also discharging) often will only be sufficient in the short term.  For a deeper long lasting recharge it needs a long low slow recharge (as gumdrop did) preferably disconnected from the car.

 

Now is the time with the shorter colder wetter days that these problems will appear commonly.

 

[Urrell]

3 hours ago, Cornish_Lad said:

Decided to use my Lidl Ultimate Speed smart charger (on the AGM mode) to see if it could charge / revitalise the battery. Upon plugging it in, it was showing less than 25% health and reading 11.8v. 

Where did you connect the charger to?

[Cornish_Lad]

2 minutes ago, Urrell said:

Where did you connect the charger to?

The terminals on the battery … 

 

My work colleague has a CTEK charger he says I can borrow that charges via the 12v socket in the car - will that be better ?

[Urrell]

1 minute ago, Cornish_Lad said:

The terminals on the battery … 

On stop/start cars the charger negative lead must not be connected to the earth terminal on the battery but to an earth post to the right of the battery.

[Breezy_Pete]

^ So that the car's battery monitoring system knows that it is being charged.

[Cornish_Lad]

Oh cripes 😞 

 

Have I definitely screwed the battery do you think ?

 

To be honest I never knew that, thanks for the heads up on that @Urrell

[Breezy_Pete]

It won't have done the battery any harm.

[nta16]

Might be very slow via a 12v socket.

 

Best to check your Driver's Handbook (Owner's Manual) and see what needs setting up again after disconnecting the battery (it was only the date clock on my wife's Fabia Mk3) and then disconnect the battery from the car (to stop it draining the battery) and recharge it somewhere above about 5c as batteries don't like it too cold or too hot.

 

I'd also resynchronise all of the remote keyfobs if I disconnected the car battery.

 

Otherwise connect charger as pointed out above and charge on car for as long as possible at a low setting and repeat this as many times as required if you can not leave the charging long enough each time.

 

Edited 28 November, 2021 by nta16

[Breezy_Pete]

Leave it on the car, connect it up as per the manual and you have more chance of things settling down.

[nta16]

Does your mate's C-Tek have a winter charging setting, if so that for below 5c - and does it also have a setting for AGM battery as that will also be at a higher setting so a bit faster.

 

[nta16]

9 minutes ago, Wino said:

Leave it on the car, connect it up as per the manual and you have more chance of things settling down.

True, if you have the time to do a full long low slow recharge otherwise it' might be a series of recharges on the car rather than in one go off the car, if there's the time.

 

Edited 28 November, 2021 by nta16

[Cornish_Lad]

Cheers all ... I'm off to work now so will pop home at lunchtime to put the Yeti on charge again - this time using the 'third' terminal.

 

The Lidl battery charger I'm using does have a AGM mode, so I'' use that as well.

Appreciate all the replies - and hopefully you've all save me a bit of expense.  If it is just the battery, and it's knackered then I'll head over to Tayna and order a replacement, but fingers crossed once it's had a good charge via the onboard computer thing should start to settle down.  I was thinking major expense time (just before Christmas too) if ABS Modules were corrupt ..

I'll report back here later in the week with (hopefully) good news.

[Austin 7]

Hi Cornish Lad

 

It seems to me that there are three possibilities:

 

The car isn't charging the battery correctly

You are doing only short journeys and the drain is exceeding the amount of charge being put in

Your battery is on its way out, especially if it's more than 5 years old

 

The terminal voltage of a battery gives only a crude idea of its health.  As a battery ages, it's capacity diminishes and its internal resistance increases.  You can end up with the electrical equivalent of a teeny motorbike size 12 volt battery sitting inside your big car battery casing.  OK, it will still charge up to a normal fully-charged voltage, but give it any serious work to do and the voltage under load will melt away. This often first becomes apparent when the weather turns cold.

 

I can't help feeling that it's new battery time.  At least you have time to shop around for a good price, and changing it yourself isn't too difficult.  If you look at previous threads you will see that in theory the car has to be reprogrammed after a battery change.  I suspect this is a "nice to have" rather than a "must do".  If it's robustly designed, the smart charging system should be able to sort itself out given a little time.

[nta16]

As car batteries are one of the most oversold parts I think it's always worth trying a good long low slow recharge as I've revived quite a few batteries for neighbours, rescued in some cases. 😄

 

It will depend on how the car and battery have been used as to how long the battery reasonably lasts perhaps it might be 5 years in this case but it might be years more if revived (or reconditioned) and the driver/user is more aware of it's importance and drain.

 

[nta16]

Cornish_Lad, after you have fully recharged the battery if you know anyone or a friendly garage that has a battery charger or battery checker that a battery capacity tester it will tell you as Austin put so well if its a teeny motorbike size inside.  See attached PDF for more details (it's for my neighbour's Ring machine, but I'm not sure it's exactly the best machine on the market but to be fair it was given to him because it'd been dropped or something).

RSC612_RESC612_Instructions.pdf

Edited 29 November, 2021 by nta16

[MX-5]

6 hours ago, Austin 7 said:

If you look at previous threads you will see that in theory the car has to be reprogrammed after a battery change.  I suspect this is a "nice to have" rather than a "must do".  If it's robustly designed, the smart charging system should be able to sort itself out given a little time.

That's a bit like saying that using the correct grade of oil in the engine, or using the correct air pressure in the tyres, is only a "nice to have"!

 

The - robustly designed - charging system is dependent on being told (through coding) when a new[*] battery is fitted. Not doing so will potentially impact the life expectancy of the battery, and the correct operations of various sub-systems such as stop/start and emissions control.

 

[*] to be precise, when a new battery is fitted with a different State_Of_Health to the battery being replaced, such as when an old defective battery is replace by a new, good, one.

[Breezy_Pete]

Some great info here about the self-learning which makes coding just a 'speeds up the process' thing: ⊳ Registering the battery - How to do it properly ❘ Banner know-how (bannerbatterien.com)

An 'executive summary' type quote from that page:

 

Conclusion: Purchasing and BEM coding an original replacement battery instead of a replacement battery from the independent aftermarket –– which does not have BEM coding –– only has the short-term advantage that the complete functionality of all systems is immediately available. Please note: The battery reaches this functionality without BEM code, usually also after some time and various „trigger events“ (impulses, signals e.g. starts, cold starts, cycles). 

 

[My emphasis/greening, their original red words]

[nta16]

Great info there Wino, do you have another reliable source as a cross-reference confirmation of that information you could post up please.

 

I know what you mean by self-learning and can't think of a better term myself but these computers don't really self-learn they're dumb machine's other than we allow ourselves to be dictated to by their programming, instead of the car being our work tool or servant we're it's servant many times

 

 

[MX-5]

That's a somewhat confusing web page - they seem to mix up what they refer to as "Open" and "Closed" systems, and the paragraph you quote is under a heading of "Self Learning Systems", which (from everything else that I have read around the topic) the Škoda system isn't. (Basically there are 3 types of systems - (1) Self Learning, (2) Coding (which Škoda uses) and (3) "chipped" batteries which report to the car that they are new).

 

Further down the same web page, under the marque specific section, they say for Škoda:

 

For models with a start-stop system (GreenLine), the control unit that monitors the battery must be reset using a diagnostic unit. Installing an original battery or original replacement battery and BEM coding. Without configuration or by installing a replacement battery from the free aftermarket, this may cause restrictions in the functionality and increased battery wear due to incorrectly functioning shut-off stages.

 

Banner conclusion: Registration recommended, BEM code required, comfort features may not work immediately and unrestricted without registration.