Hello lovely people

Does anybody have a mains car battery charger and the ability to help me out at some point in the next several days?

I've been away for a while and the car battery went flat. RAC have come out and put enough charge in to get the car starting. I'll give her a drive this afternoon. The RAC man said this will help but not fully recharge the battery. He said a slow trickle over 12-18 hours rather than a blast from the alternator is necessary.

I can go buy a charger and extension cord, but as I'll (hopefully!) only need this equipment as a one-off, I thought I'd ask here first.

I'm more or less located in the middle of Cardiff.

Thanks very much, appreciated!

He is talking out of his rear orifice, your vehicle has a minimum of a 140 ampere alternator, that is over 2 horsepower, driving for 10 minutes will be more than adequate, dont leave it too long before going for the drive because the vehicle has started once now on a warm battery depleting it somewhat, as it cools the cell voltage will drop.

Up to you who you believe, I often put on here as the RAC man has advised.  If you are going with the drive then assuming your alternator is fully functioning and your battery is otherwise in a good state of health and good state of charge then generally the less electric you use whilst driving possibly the better until the battery is fully recovered.  Too hot for such for me.

 

Without a full in depth charge you may find it more likely (or you may not) come this autumn or winter (or perhaps sooner if we have record or near record temperatures ) that you might or need (or you might not) want to charge or change your battery depending on it's present state and what you do in the meantime.  Premature or distressed battery sales are very common.

 

Bear in mind the RAC has seen your battery I haven't or any other poster here.

 

If I was in Cardiff I'd help you out with great easy and very little effort and show you how you can do the same and prevent or make low battery less likely in future with great easy and very little effort - but I'm not so can only offer my best wishes.

  

Take the car for a blast on the M4, that'll be sufficient to charge it properly.

40 minutes ago, nta16 said:

Without a full in depth charge you may find it more likely (or you may not) come this autumn or winter (or perhaps sooner if we have record or near record temperatures ) that you might or need (or you might not) want to charge or change your battery depending on it's present state and what you do in the meantime.  Premature or distressed battery sales are very common.

 

More blithering verbose nonsense, the alternator will give the battery a full charge just like the other 1.4 billion vehicles on the worlds roads.

 

40 minutes ago, nta16 said:

If I was in Cardiff I'd help you out with great easy and very little effort and show you how you can do the same and prevent or make low battery less likely in future with great easy and very little effort

 

The OP should be thankfull that you are in Northampton.

 

 

Edited 23 June, 20232 yr by J.R.

4 hours ago, J.R. said:

 

More blithering verbose nonsense, the alternator will give the battery a full charge just like the other 1.4 billion vehicles on the worlds roads.

 

 

The OP should be thankfull that you are in Northampton.

 

 

Hey, it's really disheartening to read dismissive, snotty posts. Change your tone or don't contribute further here, please.

4 hours ago, nta16 said:

If I was in Cardiff I'd help you out with great easy and very little effort and show you how you can do the same and prevent or make low battery less likely in future with great easy and very little effort - but I'm not so can only offer my best wishes.

 

Thanks, the sprirt is appreciated. And thanks for words about evaluating advice. ✌🏻

4 hours ago, sepulchrave said:

Take the car for a blast on the M4, that'll be sufficient to charge it properly.

Driving the car makes no difference to leaving it running! Modern alternators are capable of putting out a high charge rate at idle, you dont need to blast anything

So, the thing about recharging the battery by either letting the engine run with the car stationary or running her up and down the motorway ...... the RAC guy said this was something like trying to fill a bottle with a firehose. Some water will go in, but it's too vigorous. The advantage of a mains charger is that it is a slower, steadier trickle of charge and will recharge the battery as fully as it's willing to be. Please don't criticize the metaphor, I'm paraphrasing and going for gist rather than one-to-one detail with it. I don't have enough background to evaluate the merits and demerits of these two charging methods. It wasn't about the alternator (which is fine), it was about battery state and health (and ability to re-take charge) after the car sat undriven for three months.

 

I've taken her for a long drive this evening. She starts fine, she runs fine. I put music on but not the a/c. If I can find a friend w a charger, I'll give it a go. Else I might just invest in my own. Cheaper than a whole new battery.

 

Thanks for reading and considering, appreciated.

2 minutes ago, RM3 said:

So, the thing about recharging the battery by either letting the engine run with the car stationary or running her up and down the motorway ...... the RAC guy said this was something like trying to fill a bottle with a firehose. Some water will go in, but it's too vigorous. The advantage of a mains charger is that it is a slower, steadier trickle of charge and will recharge the battery as fully as it's willing to be. Please don't criticize the metaphor, I'm paraphrasing and going for gist rather than one-to-one detail with it. I don't have enough background to evaluate the merits and demerits of these two charging methods. It wasn't about the alternator (which is fine), it was about battery state and health (and ability to re-take charge) after the car sat undriven for three months.

 

I've taken her for a long drive this evening. She starts fine, she runs fine. I put music on but not the a/c. If I can find a friend w a charger, I'll give it a go. Else I might just invest in my own. Cheaper than a whole new battery.

 

Thanks for reading and considering, appreciated.

It sounds like the RAC man is waffling to be honest.

 

A battery is simply a storage device. If it isnt maintained or used you get sulfation on the battery plates, this reduces the surface area and causes the battery to loose its holding capacity. Nothing more, nothing less. 

An alternator is there to recharge that battery - simply starting the car and leaving it to idle will charge a battery, modern alternators do not just rush a huge amount of current into the battery, they are made to monitor the batteries charge level and supply what is required and not much more (reducing engine load and saving on emissions).

 

Yes you can use a battery charger on a 'deep cycle charge routine' which slowly charges the battery to break down any sulfation, but honestly - ive never had to do that in all my years of working on cars. Generally if the battery is that far gone, it wont last much longer anyway. 

A wise check on a mk1 Fabia is to see if the battery symbol illuminates when you switch the ignition on and various warning lights self-test.

It should come on and stay on until you start the engine.

 

A very common wire breakage results in it not doing this, and charging problems that may not be obvious.

 

I would expect your alternator to be 90 Amp rated, maximum; but that will replenish the energy used in starting the engine very rapidly. A full charge from empty will obviously take longer through idling or driving, but as long as you don't leave the car unused for lots of time all should return to normal without external chargers,  as long as no wires are broken, or a parasitic drain is causing energy loss.

49 minutes ago, ApertureS said:

Driving the car makes no difference to leaving it running! Modern alternators are capable of putting out a high charge rate at idle, you dont need to blast anything

 

You don't get the full output at idle so it takes longer and is a lot less fun.

12 hours ago, RM3 said:

Thanks, the sprirt is appreciated. And thanks for words about evaluating advice. ✌🏻

Thanks, pity I couldn't spell 'ease'. 😄

 

I'm with a blast up the M4 being (a bit) more fun than 10 minutes in Cardiff city centre on a Friday afternoon tho' I prefer the narrow twisty roads of north Wales.  My personal experience with friends and neighbour's car batteries is that sometimes just driving the car isn't sufficient to recover the battery enough, partial recharges (with battery charger or alternator) keeps the battery at a lower level of charge so so increasing the likelihood of a battery 'fail' when really it's a fail of the owner/driver really.

 

It depends how low the battery was taken and its condition as to how well it recovers.  I've recovered car batteries that were well "dead" and they've gone on to give useful life after.

 

A car battery in a Mk1 Fabia, depending on its use, should have a very long life but if seriously depleted at any stage for any reason may need help to fully recover (as much as possible) I personally have always found with a battery charger a lower longer recharge to be better and more successful longer term than a high fast charge with.

 

As I put before IIRC in 46 years I've only once had to use a battery charger on a car that I've owned because the battery went flat and that was totally my fault.  With my wife's VWSkoda Fabia MK3 with stop/start I invested (£23 but you can get £15 ones) in a battery charger conditioner as it's a different kettle of fish, VW and start/stop, modern car with complex German programing and lots of modern "necessities" and I use it when required and as a preventative as my wife has a low tolerance of faults in her cars, the use of the battery charger and maintainer is very easy and requires very, very little effort but does require two things that may be out of stock for many, time and patience.

 

Edited 24 June, 20232 yr by nta16
spelling (of course)

3 minutes ago, nta16 said:

A car battery in a Mk1 Fabia, depending on its use, should have a very long life but if seriously depleted at any stage for any reason may need help to fully recover (as much as possible)

Also @RM3 - Well FWIW the original battery in my Octy lasted at least 9 years (and possibly 12), and the replacement 9 and counting. This was with no "attention" other than driving the car and one jump start when I left the fog lights on all day, then drove 20 minutes home.

Thanks all. I drove the car for a road trip to the beach yester, with air con going, and all was okay. I've found a friend w a mains charger, and I will try that in the next few days. I hope it will still be useful to do that after whatever charge recovery from driving. I guess it won't hurt, in any event.

 

The battery is a few years old -- can't remember exactly when it was replaced. Old enough to not be new; young enough to be disappointed if it conked out.

On 23/06/2023 at 21:57, Breezy_Pete said:

A wise check on a mk1 Fabia is to see if the battery symbol illuminates when you switch the ignition on and various warning lights self-test.

It should come on and stay on until you start the engine.

A very common wire breakage results in it not doing this, and charging problems that may not be obvious.

Thanks for this. The battery light (red) does come on after ignition switched on and goes out once engine starts. So, I hope that aspect of my car is all okay.

It won't hurt to use a battery charger and could possibly be a real benefit, just follow the instructions in the 'Owner's Manual' which also has "A charging current of 0.1 of the total battery capacity (or lower) is that which should be used until full charging is achieved.".  That's just, for example, if the battery is 60Ah (the number will be on the battery) the charger wants to be, or have a setting of, 6 amps or less. 

 

Personally I prefer 2 amps to 4, and 4 amps to 6 but the lower the more time and patience is need to fully recharge the battery.  Some charger automatically switch themselves to a maintenance setting once the battery is fully charged meaning even less to do  of an already very little anyway.

 

 

Edited 26 June, 20232 yr by nta16
eta: forgot image

The alternator will have already fully charged the battery like 99.99% of the 1.4 billion vehicles on the planet.

In which case RM3's friend's charger will only be on for a number of second's and RM3 has the reassurance of knowing the battery is fully charged and the road trip to the beach yesterday with air con going, and any driving and battery use since, was sufficient to fully charge the battery and RAC man and I were perhaps talking out of our rear orifices on this occasion.

 

Of the 0.01% of the planet's vehicles some feature in the AA UK statistics and I agree for the vast majority of those it wouldn't have been the battery was actually at fault or faulty, AA top 10 breakdown causes. -  https://www.theaa.com/breakdown-cover/advice/top-ten-breakdown-causes

Edited 26 June, 20232 yr by nta16