and today i have mostly been...

[piglet]

not envious at all. I need to retire.

[steve_earwig]

I'm not sure how I ever found time to go to work....

Anyway, I've been a bit lacking on this thread this year but I thought you'd like an update on the yoyoII. I dropped t'wife off at t'airport this avo (she's gone to some place called England, not sure why as it sounds awful). Coming out the carpark:

BONG! Check engine system.

Oh crap, what now?

BONG! Check VSC system.

Oh sh*t, what's going on?

BONG! Check 4x4 system.

Holy effing crap, what the frigging f*ck?? OK, don't panic, just get to the next gas station, pull it in and give it a poke about. Except I didn't bank on the holiday traffic heading to the coast. Join motorway and... join the queue I turned it off and on a couple of times (hoping it'd restart without an FTP) to no avail but I didn't get to a gas station for another hour. Of course, nothing to see, let it cool off a little, restart and BONG! BONG! BONG! there they all are again

While I was stopped I texted my bro and he suggested the battery So I finally got to a mate's house and tested the voltage, 12.49 volts. Hmm. That's after running for a good while too. So I popped into the shop to see what Goran reckoned, he was out but his boss Roni loaned ( what a nice guy! ) me a brand new Yuasa to try. Stuffed it in, all quiet on the Eastern front. I've been for a drive and it's still doing ok, I'm just worried that it'll only show a fault after 100km like the old yoyo did with its vaporised cat.


Why didn't I think of that? It's not like it's a new concept to me but maybe because the battery is only 2 years old it didn't occur to me. Or is it? I thought I changed it when we got it but it's not in the service record and I can't find a receipt. It's not the original as OE is Yuasa and this is a Farta And it's never had any trouble doing the business. I guess I'll replace it anyway now I've realised.

[highlander]

I chucked a Yuasa battery in the Coupe a year or two ago because the old one decided "Naaaah" one cold morning when I tried to go to work. Can't say much more about it other than "it's still working fine".

[steve_earwig]

Yuasa were always the go-to battery for bikes, they always had a good rep. These days I read folks aren't too happy with them, now Varta seems to be the quality battery

I'd keep this one in but it's a bit down on the old CCA's, the old one is 60Ah, 540CCA, new 60Ah, 450CCA - it's for a manual I guess but it's all Roni had. I can't actually find details on the OE battery, Yuasa 56D23L is all it says, which is NLS and so out of date nobody's got any specs. Yuasa themselves recommend a YBX3030, 70Ah 570CCA but they would wouldn't they?

[Welly]

The lolvo threw up some funny warnings as the battery was dying:

• Power Steering Fault
  Engine System Fault

Folk said it was the systems most needy of electricity that complain first. Or something.

Upon replacing said battery all was quiet again.

[steve_earwig]

This is getting confusing. I didn't bother charging the new battery as it had 12.something volts in it, good enough to start the car and I figured the alternator would do the rest. On idle the alternator is shoving almost 14 volts into the battery. I stuffed the old battery onto the CTEK, gave it a recondition charge for a day, all systems AOK. Measured the new battery before I took it out, 12.7 volts The old battery has been back in the car overnight, I've only started the car once to check it did in fact start but now it's measuring 12.6 volts - what the actual? Current drain? Never refused to start And the voltage was low even after the car had been running for a couple of hours.

I just dun a current test on the negative post, about 100mA. That's a little high

[OllieNZ]

Battery open circuit voltage is not necessarily a good reflection of capacity. Put the battery in the car and hook your meter up to it. Check the voltage drop as you start the car. Another thing worth noting is it can take modern cars 15-30 minutes to shut down various systems so depending on how long you left it (you may even have to lock the car for it to shut down everything) the idle battery drain may not be as much as you're seeing.

[PeterN]

The open circuit voltage of a battery means very little, it will still read 12 volts or more when it's flat with no load on it. Providing it reads about 14.4 volts with the engine running its charging OK, if it subsequently wont start the car the chances are that the battery has had it unless something is discharging it overnight and you can check that by disconnecting the battery at night and reconnecting it in the morning, also if it starts with another battery that proves the point.

As batteries age they loose plate material and the capacity gradually reduces but because because they are designed primarily to provide starting current then the alternator takes the load, they will still start the car with a large loss of capacity but maybe only once, if it doesn't start first time you may well not get a second chance as the battery will have very little reserve capacity, even leaving the light on will discharge it very quickly.

You need to test a battery under load to get a proper indication of its condition, a battery supplier will have a load tester or you can check by measuring the voltage across the battery with the starter engaged, if it reads 10 or 11 volts it should be good, much less and its on the way out.

Peter

[PeterN]

Sorry Ollie, you just beat me to it.

[steve_earwig]

Cheers guys, I'll check that in a bit. I did ask if anyone had a tester but NFC no-one has one . New battery ordered anyway, I don't like not knowing how old it is (having once experienced sudden battery death syndrome) and it'll get it out of the equation if there is indeed a problem.

[OllieNZ]

Sorry Ollie, you just beat me to it.

No worries ;)

Cheers guys, I'll check that in a bit. I did ask if anyone had a tester but NFC no-one has one . New battery ordered anyway, I don't like not knowing how old it is (having once experienced sudden battery death syndrome) and it'll get it out of the equation if there is indeed a problem.

I service/test aircraft batteries at work and a good tester is fookin expensive I believe ours was somewhere in the region of £3k. That's why checking the voltage drop on start is a useful way of doing it. A battery in good nick shouldn't really drop below 11v.

[steve_earwig]

It's hard to say as it's a DMM and the car starts too quickly, but I did see a 10 on there I don't know how to disable a start on it to have it crank for more than 0.2 seconds... Anyway, it should be a spare from tomorrow (which I'll carry in the boot for now just in case)

With the meter still on, at idle it was 13.6-ish, dropping to 13.4-ish with everything turned on. Revving it never got it above 14 volts.

This all seems close to what it should be but not quite. Might be a fault somewhere, might be absolutely nothing. I love a mystery

[Welly]

Pull the main fuel pump relay and get a'crankin?


No liability accepted for even more faults.

[PeterN]

Sounds as though you have an alternator problem, it should be around 14.4v after it has been idling for a couple of minutes.

Peter

[steve_earwig]

I'm kind of thinking that way, although I'm still puzzled why it lost a volt out of the new battery just sitting overnight. Wait until it manifests itself in a more apparent manner? Spare battery in boot...

Pull the main fuel pump relay and get a'crankin?


No liability accepted for even more faults.

Where would that be then?