Battery woes

tottot · Nov 22, 2016

Many an older battery will benefit from being charged up fully by a good battery charger,alternators often never fully charge a battery even after a decent run.
+ 1 on Oldseadog's post.

guineafowl21 · Nov 22, 2016

tottot said:
Many an older battery will benefit from being charged up fully by a good battery charger,alternators often never fully charge a battery even after a decent run.
+ 1 on Oldseadog's post.

Definitely. My 90 Td5 sat for 2 1/2 years barely used and the 10 year-old Delphi battery went flat several times, despite being charged now and again by a conventional charger. It lost the ability to hold charge, and I thought it was knackered.

Then I bought a CTEK 'intelligent' charger, which has a desulphation mode and monitored, staged charging and it's resurrected the old thing. 2 years later and the battery hasn't let me down, even recently when the temp was -7C and the 90 had been sitting for 10 days. Highly recommended.

Turboman · Nov 22, 2016

Oldseadog said:
Check and clean your earths before throwing away cash on a new battery that might not be required!

Yes, and check that the connections on the terminals are good.

wattfield · Nov 22, 2016

Oldseadog said:
Check and clean your earths before throwing away cash on a new battery that might not be required!

Done that

tottot said:
Many an older battery will benefit from being charged up fully by a good battery charger,alternators often never fully charge a battery even after a decent run.
+ 1 on Oldseadog's post.

Done that too!

guineafowl21 said:
Definitely. My 90 Td5 sat for 2 1/2 years barely used and the 10 year-old Delphi battery went flat several times, despite being charged now and again by a conventional charger. It lost the ability to hold charge, and I thought it was knackered.

Then I bought a CTEK 'intelligent' charger, which has a desulphation mode and monitored, staged charging and it's resurrected the old thing. 2 years later and the battery hasn't let me down, even recently when the temp was -7C and the 90 had been sitting for 10 days. Highly recommended.

Yep, I have a CTEK!

Turboman said:
Yes, and check that the connections on the terminals are good.

And that!

wattfield · Nov 22, 2016

I bought the Hankook, and got a message from the seller saying it had "become out of stock" and I could cancel if I wanted to. I was going to, but I'll do all the above again at the weekend, just to make sure!

tottot · Nov 22, 2016

You have probably done all you can to save your batt,

anything more and you are just trying to raise the dead.

lynall · Nov 23, 2016

Turboman said:
Perkins 4/248. Might be only 28 to 1, not really looked into it, but most old Perks run about that. Landrover diesels were always very low comp, probably because it was originally a petrol engine.

That pretty high, it must make a right crack when it first fires up? Iirc the first land rover diesel the 2ltr was 22.1 and all later ones up to and incl the 200/300 were 19.1 or 19.5 to 1.

Turboman · Nov 23, 2016

lynall said:
That pretty high, it must make a right crack when it first fires up? Iirc the first land rover diesel the 2ltr was 22.1 and all later ones up to and incl the 200/300 were 19.1 or 19.5 to 1.

Apologies, but actually the tractor engines were lower compression than the vehicle engines. About 20 to 1 on the trac version!

Some of the others are higher, 4/203 vehicle engine was about 30 IIRC, and yes, they do make a a fair compression knock. Some of the long stroke Listers used to have massive compression as well. Memories blur after a while!

Tim4x4 · Nov 23, 2016

I have just fitted an Odyssey PC2150 Extreme battery from The Battery mega store https://www.batterymegastore.co.uk/products-by-manufacturer/odyssey/odyssey-pc2150.html
It was one heck of a price but I needed something I could count on during the winter months it is fitted to a 110 TD5.
The previous battery gave good starting performance Bosch 100Ah with a 5 year warranty changed at 7 years, I could not find one in stock anywhere otherwise I would have purchased another.

guineafowl21 · Nov 23, 2016

wattfield said:
Done that

Done that too!

Yep, I have a CTEK!

And that!

All right, smarty-pants

If you still have problems,
1 Check alternator output
2. Check batt voltage doesn't drop below 9V on cranking
3. Do voltage drop tests from batt +ve post to starter +ve post, and from batt -ve post to engine block during cranking. Roughly, anything under 1 V is good.

TorsionBhudda · Nov 23, 2016

I've noticed my 200Tdi Defender has become slow to start recently it sits for a week and when it does start battery light flickers for couple seconds. I never had problem during summer when it sat for couple months at a time.
I'm considering getting one off these just to help battery out http://shop.theaa.com/store/home/car-battery-solar-charger just wondered if anyone has used one and is it worth getting?

Turboman · Nov 23, 2016

TorsionBhudda said:
I've noticed my 200Tdi Defender has become slow to start recently it sits for a week and when it does start battery light flickers for couple seconds. I never had problem during summer when it sat for couple months at a time.
I'm considering getting one off these just to help battery out http://shop.theaa.com/store/home/car-battery-solar-charger just wondered if anyone has used one and is it worth getting?

TBH I doubt if you will get anything useful of that in Scotland in midwinter. It might give a useful top up in May and June.

I would rather spend the money on a good trickle charger, and give the battery a good charge every now and again with that.

There does come a time when you just have to bite the bullet and get a new battery, though.

biggeeeee · Nov 23, 2016

As Turbo says
I bought one to keep the battery topped up on my old boat, complete waste of time.
You need to spend big to get something more capable solar wise

guineafowl21 · Nov 23, 2016

TorsionBhudda said:
I've noticed my 200Tdi Defender has become slow to start recently it sits for a week and when it does start battery light flickers for couple seconds. I never had problem during summer when it sat for couple months at a time.
I'm considering getting one off these just to help battery out http://shop.theaa.com/store/home/car-battery-solar-charger just wondered if anyone has used one and is it worth getting?

Flickering battery light usually means the alternator is not working properly.

Solar charger is bound to add SOME charge to the battery, but as Turboman says this may not be enough. Far better to get a trickle charger on it - some even come with a flying plug you can mount on the battery so you can just plug the charger right in.

Or... how about one of those new lithium boost packs? I've not used one but the seem a good thing to keep in the cubby box.

Turboman · Nov 23, 2016

biggeeeee said:
As Turbo says
I bought one to keep the battery topped up on my old boat, complete waste of time.
You need to spend big to get something more capable solar wise

Exactly why I said that!

We have 2x100w panels on ours, still didnt stop the fridge eating our leisure batteries when we left it on!

ER1C · Nov 23, 2016

guineafowl21 said:
Definitely. My 90 Td5 sat for 2 1/2 years barely used and the 10 year-old Delphi battery went flat several times, despite being charged now and again by a conventional charger. It lost the ability to hold charge, and I thought it was knackered.

Then I bought a CTEK 'intelligent' charger, which has a desulphation mode and monitored, staged charging and it's resurrected the old thing. 2 years later and the battery hasn't let me down, even recently when the temp was -7C and the 90 had been sitting for 10 days. Highly recommended.

+1 ... on the intelligent charging, worked wonders for my pair... and most of those also have a battery conditioning feature so you can just leave them plugged in all the time.

Turboman · Nov 23, 2016

ER1C said:
+1 ... on the intelligent charging, worked wonders for my pair... and most of those also have a battery conditioning feature so you can just leave them plugged in all the time.

Yes, got that too. Charges it up, then goes into check and maintain mode.

guineafowl21 · Nov 23, 2016

Turboman said:
Exactly why I said that!

We have 2x100w panels on ours, still didnt stop the fridge eating our leisure batteries when we left it on!

Looking at the specs of the Halfrauds solar charger, and ignoring the erroneous 'modern cars can consume 0.02 amps per hour', even at peak output (unlikely to be realised, especially in winter and with 2.8m long cables), the unit is unlikely to put in more than 8-10 Ah per week. This is less than 10% of a typical battery's capacity, and ignores self-discharge.

It may make the difference in starting, but unless you're parked miles from anywhere, you have a reliable power source in your house - much cheaper and more reliable to use this (trickle charger or boost pack charged from mains) than trying to piddle around with solar energy in this form.

Turboman · Nov 23, 2016

guineafowl21 said:
Looking at the specs of the Halfrauds solar charger, and ignoring the erroneous 'modern cars can consume 0.02 amps per hour', even at peak output (unlikely to be realised, especially in winter and with 2.8m long cables), the unit is unlikely to put in more than 8-10 Ah per week. This is less than 10% of a typical battery's capacity, and ignores self-discharge.

It may make the difference in starting, but unless you're parked miles from anywhere, you have a reliable power source in your house - much cheaper and more reliable to use this (trickle charger or boost pack charged from mains) than trying to piddle around with solar energy in this form.

Quite right in the case of vehicles. I actually have mains power in the yard!

Need quite a long lead to charge up the boat, though, it is 368 miles away!

wattfield · Nov 23, 2016

guineafowl21 said:
All right, smarty-pants

If you still have problems,
1 Check alternator output
2. Check batt voltage doesn't drop below 9V on cranking
3. Do voltage drop tests from batt +ve post to starter +ve post, and from batt -ve post to engine block during cranking. Roughly, anything under 1 V is good.

1. 13.2v at the battery
2. Checked a few times - 9.3 - 9.8v.
3. It's dark, I might try this at the weekend.

Battery woes

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Mab An Gov

AKA Dirk Diggler

AKA Dirk Diggler

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Mab An Gov

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Mab An Gov

Retired - Living the dream

Well-Known Member

Mab An Gov

Well-Known Member

Mab An Gov

Well-Known Member

Mab An Gov

AKA Dirk Diggler

Similar threads