Battery not holding charge. No Parasitic drain.

[VAskodas]

Hello,

My Banner battery, 70AH 720CCA, cannot hold charge thus cannot start the vehicle. The measured voltage at first time when i got the problem was 12,4v. I said, ok, maybe it needs charging. Well this is where things go tricky...i've made 165km in that day but when i shut off the car and later that day tried to start the engine it died on me. Fortunately i had a jump starter and i started the car. Next day, i checked the alternator by revving the car up to 2000rpm and volt tested the output. I get 14,5 to 14,7v. According to manufacturer, this is what you suppose to get from a healthy alternator. My next step was to measure for parasitic drain. Again, i wired up my digital multimeter in series with the negative pole of the battery and closed the doors an locked the central locking system. At first seconds I was getting around 200mA for about a minute, then 100mA and finally 56mA. The whole process took about 3 to 4 minutes. As far as i know, somewhere about 50mA it is normal. So, it wasn't a parasitic drain, nor bad alternator. Next step was to charge the battery with an external car battery charger over night. At this point i will say that the charger wasn't a fairly good and strong charger. It was a cheap 5A charger that could charge the AGM battery. As you can guess.....no luck there either. So finally, i decided to order a new battery.

Should i tested something else before or am i missing something or there is no other troubleshooting steps to perform???

[Warrior193]

A load test on the battery would have been a good way to check - that could have been done with the Fluke connected to the battery terminals while someone operated the starter. Very likely that the battery had died though.

[VAskodas]

6 minutes ago, Warrior193 said:

A load test on the battery would have been a good way to check - that could have been done with the Fluke connected to the battery terminals while someone operated the starter. Very likely that the battery had died though.

Hi and thanks for the input. Well here’s the thing, the load test has been already done by trying to start the engine and the starter is acting here as a load by straining the battery enough. As for the measurement during this test or any type of load test should not be performed by a series connection of a digital multimeter because most of them have only 10A capability and the starter requires many hundreds of amps.    
Anyway, the car is firing up with jump starter in a fraction of a second so starter also working good. I will agree though about a dead battery. Will see tomorrow when my new battery arrive. 
 

[Warrior193]

I think you misunderstood - I mean connect the meter probes (DC volts setting) on the battery terminal and read the lowest voltage while the starter is cranking. If battery voltage falls below 10 volts, battery is either discharged or dead. 

[VAskodas]

1 minute ago, Warrior193 said:

I think you misunderstood - I mean connect the meter probes (DC volts setting) on the battery terminal and read the lowest voltage while the starter is cranking. If battery voltage falls below 10 volts, battery is either discharged or dead. 

Oh yes indeed. This was also performed exactly like you mentioned and yes the voltage dropped below 7v!!! Around 6,7v. 
I tried to charge the battery over night but still no improvement. 

[ApertureS]

7 hours ago, VAskodas said:

Oh yes indeed. This was also performed exactly like you mentioned and yes the voltage dropped below 7v!!! Around 6,7v. 
I tried to charge the battery over night but still no improvement. 

Battery is toast… (or engine is seized) and I’m going with you know it’s not the second option 😂

 

The plates will be cracked or sulfated in the battery meaning it’s true storage capacity and output capacity is massively reduced enough to pull the voltage down that low 

[VAskodas]

2 hours ago, ApertureS said:

Battery is toast… (or engine is seized) and I’m going with you know it’s not the second option 😂

 

The plates will be cracked or sulfated in the battery meaning it’s true storage capacity and output capacity is massively reduced enough to pull the voltage down that low 

I agree. I ordered a Noco genius 5 battery charger also and it has a feature that can send the voltage in pulsating way (i believe. Not 100% sure) to de sulfate the plates. Will see how this goes. 😉

I will repost here after the test result. 

[Breezy_Pete]

Very doubtful that it can make any useful recovery, sorry.

 

[J.R.]

On most of the chargers that function sounds great but in reality is a chocolate teapot, if you look into it deeply enough you will find that the process is only invoked if the cell voltage is below 7.5v at which point the battery is usually long beyond salvation.

 

Any older battery may be sulphated, its very tempting to want to let the charger work its magic but no way would I willingly discharge it to lower than 7.5v in order to do so.

 

The value of the function is that other chargers simply will not recognise a battery with that low a voltage and cannot charge them but that is easily overcome by using a second battery as a shunt for the first few minutes.

I think the voltage is 7.5v, now I am beginning to have doubts.

[VAskodas]

14 minutes ago, Breezy_Pete said:

Very doubtful that it can make any useful recovery, sorry.

 

Yes indeed. I also don’t think it could make a huge difference if any, but still worth the shot since I will have it on hands. Just for my curiosity. To be 100%. 

[VAskodas]

2 minutes ago, VAskodas said:

Yes indeed. I also don’t think it could make a huge difference if any, but still worth the shot since I will have it on hands. Just for my curiosity. To be 100%. 

To be sure that I’ve tried everything in my power. 😉

[VAskodas]

Guys, an update. I installed the new battery and  everything is working as it should.

Note: Did you know if you battery is bad but you are jump started the vehicle and running but still the car system knows that you have bad battery and it is deactivating the start-stop function?

After replacement the function is enabled again and working correctly.

 

Tomorrow i will try the dead battery again once more after a so called 12v repair mode by the Noco genius 5.

See ya...

[VAskodas]

11 hours ago, J.R. said:

On most of the chargers that function sounds great but in reality is a chocolate teapot, if you look into it deeply enough you will find that the process is only invoked if the cell voltage is below 7.5v at which point the battery is usually long beyond salvation.

 

Any older battery may be sulphated, its very tempting to want to let the charger work its magic but no way would I willingly discharge it to lower than 7.5v in order to do so.

 

The value of the function is that other chargers simply will not recognise a battery with that low a voltage and cannot charge them but that is easily overcome by using a second battery as a shunt for the first few minutes.

I think the voltage is 7.5v, now I am beginning to have doubts.

I have the battery hooked up for almost 2 hours now and it seems to me that it's working. The 12v repair LED is flashing as it should and i'm getting measured voltage of 15.68 to 15.72 in 1.5sec interval. I removed the charger from the battery for a moment and after taking a measurement again i had a 12.63v steady!!!. So it might doing its magic i suppose...😉

Edited 27 March by VAskodas
Added text

[nta16]

Up to you who and what you believe.

 

You were a bit late in sorting the battery and a 5-amp appropriate changer rather than being too low was perhaps too high.  The secret is to get the right charger (a "smart" charger might need fooling which ain't difficult as like "smart" "phones" they ain't that smart) and it can be a "smart" charger, go low (amps), slow and long for best results.  Think day(+) rather than hours.  I've recovered a few "dead" batteries over the decades without "clever" maths or education or training, just by experience.

 

I've recovered a battery at  2.5V (multimeter, not Fiuke reading on connected terminals), though I'd not trust it for long after charging, and a battery that was left "dead" on a garage floor for 2 years to be successfully used on a little used small van (until I had to recharge it again).  But I'm no good at maths, physics, chemistry, sexy battery chargers or scan tools, so I just relying on decades of real life experience, the basics are still the basics.

 

It doesn't matter what the voltage reads at charge or after it's how long it retains charge and how good the battery is in real use.

 

I use a 20+ year old 1.8 amp charger. a 4-amp, 30+ year old charger and a  new-ish 4-amp "smart" start/stop charger, on "standard", EFB and AGM car batteries and none of them fancy, expensive types of chargers like Noco and others.

 

The secret is prevention, if required charge the car battery with an appropriate battery charger maintainer before it gets too low and too often too low, prevention rather than cure.  The very complex VW computer systems don't like a battery in a low state of charge and will cause all sorts of unexpected issues even when the engine starts and the lights seem bright enough and before you get any warning messages and lights on the car dash and perhaps even before scan tool stuff.

 

Keep going with the Noco and you might get (much?) more useful car use out of that battery.

 

Final point, if you want to accept it, if you read the Owner's Manual and the instructions for the battery charger you might know more than if you don't, despite what you might have ben told or learnt this is not illegal in any way for a (macho) man to do so.

 

Wishing you the very best with your real life learning experience, and perhaps getting the battery to more useful life.  😁

Edited 28 March by nta16
typos

[ords]

1 hour ago, VAskodas said:

Guys, an update. I installed the new battery and  everything is working as it should.

Note: Did you know if you battery is bad but you are jump started the vehicle and running but still the car system knows that you have bad battery and it is deactivating the start-stop function?

After replacement the function is enabled again and working correctly.

 

Tomorrow i will try the dead battery again once more after a so called 12v repair mode by the Noco genius 5.

See ya...

Did you code the new battery?

[PetrolDave]

12 hours ago, VAskodas said:

I have the battery hooked up for almost 2 hours now and it seems to me that it's working. The 12v repair LED is flashing as it should and i'm getting measured voltage of 15.68 to 15.72 in 1.5sec interval. I removed the charger from the battery for a moment and after taking a measurement again i had a 12.63v steady!!!. So it might doing its magic i suppose...😉

That open circuit voltage measurement tells you nothing about the internal resistance of the battery, the only meaningful test is a load test.

[J.R.]

Also the initial voltage when taken off charge is meaningless.

[3rdoctavia]

I have an old charger which just puts out low amps until you disconnect it so I've used that before when I've had a battery that seems to be dead. Like you say the smart chargers seem to want some life in the battery before they will begin a charge cycle so using the old charger before switching to the smart charger seems to do th trick . Or am I kidding myself here ?

 

I've tended to use this for batteries in my old landrover if it's been sat.for a while.

[VAskodas]

26 minutes ago, J.R. said:

Also the initial voltage when taken off charge is meaningless.

The measurement was taken after 6 hours off the charger. 
 

[VAskodas]

1 hour ago, PetrolDave said:

That open circuit voltage measurement tells you nothing about the internal resistance of the battery, the only meaningful test is a load test.

I’m not saying that the voltage measurement is the way to go to asses if the battery’s life or condition is good or bad. Just saying that i noticed some difference in measurement after initial try of repair mode of the noco5 unit.  I will agree that the load test is the proper way to tell if it’s good or bad. This will happen as soon I but the old battery in the car again as I stated in earlier post. Will see, maybe today. 

[nta16]

You can do various load tests but real life use of the battery on the car is proper conformation for me.

 

The car battery is one of the most oversold car parts, in the UK at least, with premature, often distress, replacement when very often using an appropriate battery charger maintainer would have put off the replacement purchase for a very long time.

 

Battery issues is also the number one reason for breakdown call outs in the UK (January 2nd being  the busiest for those) the majority of times the problem could have been avoided by preventative use of an appropriate charger maintainer which would also extended the usual life of the battery and if done when required more regularly extend the battery life by years.  As the post 2021 cars age there will be more need for appropriate charger maintainer or simply more premature replacement batteries sold.

 

RAC must make a killing out of them judging by how quickly they tell their customers they need a new battery and how much they charge for them, even a mate bought a replacement battery after calling them out, battery not from them as they were so high priced, I took his previous battery away and it charged up well and held charge so I returned it to him to use as a 12v power supply in the garage for radio and tools.  He learnt his lesson then and takes more care of the batteries of his small fleet.

 

[VAskodas]

3 hours ago, nta16 said:

You can do various load tests but real life use of the battery on the car is proper conformation for me.

 

The car battery is one of the most oversold car parts, in the UK at least, with premature, often distress, replacement when very often using an appropriate battery charger maintainer would have put off the replacement purchase for a very long time.

 

Battery issues is also the number one reason for breakdown call outs in the UK (January 2nd being  the busiest for those) the majority of times the problem could have been avoided by preventative use of an appropriate charger maintainer which would also extended the usual life of the battery and if done when required more regularly extend the battery life by years.  As the post 2021 cars age there will be more need for appropriate charger maintainer or simply more premature replacement batteries sold.

 

RAC must make a killing out of them judging by how quickly they tell their customers they need a new battery and how much they charge for them, even a mate bought a replacement battery after calling them out, battery not from them as they were so high priced, I took his previous battery away and it charged up well and held charge so I returned it to him to use as a 12v power supply in the garage for radio and tools.  He learnt his lesson then and takes more care of the batteries of his small fleet.

 

Well, here's the thing...i didn't know anything about car battery faults before my battery died on me and that's  why i started this topic. I make a little bit of  a research online about this and the only thing i could try (after troubleshooting for bad alternator if not charging, parasitic drain and stuf..) is to try charging it overnight and see if the car will start next day, but without any luck unfortunately. Then, i ordered a new battery because it was the only way to get my vehicle back on the road again since i have to make a small trip tomorrow of about 165km.

 

Also i ordered a charger noco genius 5 not to revive my old battery but to maintain my new in the long run. But since i will have it i will try the 12v repair mode and after that a good overnight charge just to see if my case is one of those that battery can be saved. We'll see.

[VAskodas]

17 hours ago, ords said:

Did you code the new battery?

Not yet cuz i cant really understand which one is the serial number on the battery. I will upload 2 photos of the stickers that is on the battery. If you can recognize which one is the serial number please repost.

Thanks.

[nta16]

Well you've got some nifty multimeters, or a good mate to lend them to you.

 

You cam read up a lot and pick up a lot but the basics still apply and they're pretty straightforward and simple, if you think of the battery purely as a store, or a simple bank account, you can't take out more than is put in, you can only spend the money once and then it needs replacing if you want to spend more.

 

If you want more info, details, and fact sheets, links, on batteries and VW's system PM me.

 

There no trouble with learning for the first time absolutely everyone has to, but some of us struggle to retain or remember what we've learnt, and relearnt. 😄  I only learnt about VW's battery 'coding' stuff when I got a new battery for my wife's Fabia Mk3, all PITA stuff to me. 

 

Don't worry about battery serial numbers and battery make that was just for VW's sake and often the factory hasn't bother with the serial number just put a string of ones (1111111111) and all you need do is increase that number by one (1111111112).  Also you need to change the battery type from EFB to fleece (VW for AGM) and alter to 70 (Ah).  As with all computer data input or 'coding' be very careful to check what you've typed and double-check it before committing to the program.  See the example for my wife's car done by a Briskoda member on his OBDEleven.  The battery manufacturer was a three letter code but you can just leave it as before.  AFAIK Bosch is a Varta so I and you could put in "VAO" AFAIL VW's code for Varta (but mine has been fine left with "Bosch").

 

 

You might get the previous battery back for useful use, be interesting to see, as I put the secret is time and patience (which many don't posses, one or both) go as low (amps) slow and long (many hours or day or days) as you can, always fully charge the battery even if it means doing it in a couple of stages if you don't have time or need use of the car. 

 

Edited 28 March by nta16
ETA:

[nta16]

7 hours ago, 3rdoctavia said:

I have an old charger which just puts out low amps until you disconnect it so I've used that before when I've had a battery that seems to be dead. Like you say the smart chargers seem to want some life in the battery before they will begin a charge cycle so using the old charger before switching to the smart charger seems to do th trick . Or am I kidding myself here ?

I've done the same and revived "dead" car batteries.

 

Some of the modern chargers (for 12v battery) won't even try at battery below 6v or 7.2V or 7.5v or even higher IIRC but you can get round that in the way you have and a couple more ways with these so called "smart" chargers (maintainers) to fool them into trying or get the battery to a point where they will try.

 

An image oft t'net of the cheap plastic 30+-year old Bradex B4 I sometimes use, the needle gauge is very useful and I can tell within 2-10 minutes how low the battery actually is and looking at the needle again in 15-45 minutes later if it might take hours, overnight or day to charge.