General 2010 Panda 1.2 Clock zeroing.

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Print it! Its almost impossible to get a duplicate! Sounds like B responded much as Daffo did. Its nice to have a solid starter in this cols weather.

Printer is stored in the garage just now due to us being "invaded" with relatives staying for Christmas/new year. Mrs J's sister came last night after an all day, delayed, diverted and horrendous rail journey up from Devon. The train was "stuffed" she couldn't even go to the loo as so many people were standing everywhere. At one point they were locking the doors whilst in the stations to stop people getting on! Then it terminated in Newcastle (crosscountry) due to line damage of some sort I believe, so she was stuffed in a taxi with others for Edinburgh and delivered to Waverley station about 3 hours late where I picked her up and drove her to ours. Actually, being late was an advantage as the heavy traffic had all gone home by then. Daughter and her "tribe" arriving in the wee small hours tomorrow after driving up overnight to try to avoid the heaviest traffic. House will be bursting at the seams but I'm sure it'll be lovely. Anyway, on your advice Panda Nut, I'm going to bring the printer into the kitchen tomorrow and get that receipt printed off!

 

[The Panda Nut]

Printer is stored in the garage just now due to us being "invaded" with relatives staying for Christmas/new year. Mrs J's sister came last night after an all day, delayed, diverted and horrendous rail journey up from Devon. The train was "stuffed" she couldn't even go to the loo as so many people were standing everywhere. At one point they were locking the doors whilst in the stations to stop people getting on! Then it terminated in Newcastle (crosscountry) due to line damage of some sort I believe, so she was stuffed in a taxi with others for Edinburgh and delivered to Waverley station about 3 hours late where I picked her up and drove her to ours. Actually, being late was an advantage as the heavy traffic had all gone home by then. Daughter and her "tribe" arriving in the wee small hours tomorrow after driving up overnight to try to avoid the heaviest traffic. House will be bursting at the seams but I'm sure it'll be lovely. Anyway, on your advice Panda Nut, I'm going to bring the printer into the kitchen tomorrow and get that receipt printed off!

Good plan. If the kids dont haulit off by the wires... I hope you all have a healthy, peaceful and prosperous Christmas.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Good plan. If the kids dont haulit off by the wires... I hope you all have a healthy, peaceful and prosperous Christmas.

Should be Ok today because Daughter and her "gang" don't arrive until early hours of tomorrow morning. They're not setting off from Salisbury until early this evening. Anyway her kids are older (14 and 17) so more in the recalcitrant teenager stage of life. It's my boys who have the younger kids (3 off between them, aged 3 to 8) and they, being local, aren't staying over, just visiting from day to day - although they can cause a remarkable amount of "damage" even if just visiting for a morning or whatever.

Thank you for the Christmas wishes and I hope you have a very Jolly Christmas and that 2023 is good to you.

PS. Went for milk just a few minutes ago and Becky burst into life with great enthusiasm almost as soon as I touched the key! Looking like that old battery was just hanging on by the skin of it's teeth. I'm going to put it on a reconditioning charge with my Ctek charger let it rest for 24 hours or so and then try a heavy discharge if I can borrow one of those old style resistance testers and see how it shapes up. Might make a good emergency battery for jump starting the smaller engined cars in "the fleet" if it shows up good and I keep it permanently on a trickle charge?

 

[DaveMcT]

I think many batteries get trashed by lack of use either on dealer forecourts or owner’s drive way while they decide to sell the car. Nothing wrecks lead acid like disuse.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Happy to report the receipt is printed and safely filed in the Becky folder. Daughter husband and children had a very good run up last night but we are rather tired today as Mrs J would not go to bed until they were in through the front door. Son in law's decission to start late and drive through the night was a good one as he reports light traffic and one of the quickest journey times they've ever made. I'm now wondering if I could manage that when we go on our next "pilgrimage" to Devon. Not too confident that this old body is quite up for a long overnight drive though.

I was up early this morning so I could grab a shower before my granddaughter (17 years old) takes over the bathroom for a couple of hours - and uses up all the hot water! Now having a quiet few moments in the living room before they all descend and start raiding the food supplies like a ravening hoard of locusts! Mrs J has insisted the heating be left on all the time while they are here and already the smart meter is recording some "interesting" figures! Indeed it's going to be very interesting to see what daily consumption is because, on our own, we are only heating half the house for a couple of hours when we get up and a couple of hours before bedtime, for the rest of the day we have a gas fire in the living room which keeps us nice and toasty.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

I think many batteries get trashed by lack of use either on dealer forecourts or owner’s drive way while they decide to sell the car. Nothing wrecks lead acid like disuse.

Absolutely. I think it's the combination of discharge/charge/discharge/charge and the agitation of the electrolyte caused by the natural motion of the vehicle which is best for them.

 

[koalar]

Pretty sure we went through this

100hp intermittent power steering fault? | FIAT Panda (Mk3)

don't bother with a video. I am sure it will be the meter test the battery at rest should be between 12.4-12.8V and 12.6V is ideal. if its over 12.6V take the surface charge off. Put the main beam on for a few minutes wait a few minutes and retest until its around 12.6V start the car and...

www.fiatforum.com

From another forum

I've been keeping the batteries alive on my "weekend" cars for about 10 years using the cheapo Halfords trickle charger I've had since dinosaurs roamed the earth plugged into an equally cheapo electromechanical timer. I never bother disconnecting the battery - I plug the charger into the cigarette lighter socket (check the polarity and that it is permanently live - it is on a Chimaera). I usually give it 30 minutes of trickle charge every night. Batteries last 5 - 8 years instead of the 8 months I was getting when they go flat and recharge them.

 

[DaveMcT]

I used to do that on motorbikes but my current home has no mains power in the garage so the batteries suffered. I went to an LFP which solved the problem at the cost of "interesting" cold weather behaviour. Hopefully the newer versions wont need to be pre-warmed in cold weather.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

I hope no-one minds me resurrecting this older thread but I thought an update might interest folks. I've been quite surprised by the difference in starting performance. With the old battery fitted the only signs a problem was approaching was that the clock was resetting to zero every time we started her up from cold. She still seemed to crank quite fast, certainly fast enough that on an older car I wouldn't have given it a thought and she started and ran first time, repeated tries were seldom needed. When checking open circuit voltage after she'd sat for a few days it seemed to settle to around 12.2 or 12.3 volts. Now with the new battery fitted she cranks just a little faster but the most noticeable thing is that she fires up very quickly indeed - at least twice as fast as with the old battery fitted. I doubt if she goes over compression more than about 4, 5 or 6 times, maybe only a couple of turns of the crank, if that.

My conclusion is that the battery was definitely on it's way out so buying the new battery was the correct thing to do. However I've been "messing about" with the old battery and started off by rocking it on a see saw plate to give the electrolyte a good mixing up (I've been reading about electrolyte stratification) then put it on a "Recond" charge on my ctek charger just out of interest to see what it might do. It's been very interesting. I did the Recond procedure a couple of weeks ago and almost immediately afterwards used it to jump my neighbour's Renault Twingo which had a completely flat battery after he'd not run it for over a month and then tried to inflate a flat tyre with his electric pump. Although it turned over a bit slowly it did start it but it really stressed the old Fiat battery. I immediately put it back on the ctek and left it there for a couple of days on a "normal" charge. It's probably been just less than a week - 5 days maybe?) since I took it off the charger and I've just put my multimeter on it and it's showing 12.61 volts! I think I've just aquired a new jump start battery to complement the big old diesel battery which is my current go to for jump starting. It'll be very handy for smaller vehicles as the big one is pretty heavy to lug around!

I'm now convinced I "need" a proper battery tester and I've narrowed my choice down to the Clarke: https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-cvt2-12v-battery-tester/ from Machine Mart because it's cheap and it "stresses" the battery (l feel I know exactly how to use it too because it's really a more modern version of the old type I used myself when working in workshops) However I'm very tempted by the TopDon BT 200 (or maybe their BT100): https://www.topdon.com/products/battery-tester-bt200 But I'm less sure about how it works and it obviously doesn't put the battery under significant load to do it. However it is "new" tech and does get some very good reviews. Maybe I should buy both? Naw! Come on Jock, get real, you'd never get Mrs J to agree to spending that much on your "hobby"!

 

[koalar]

Get a jump start from a big diesel car and you really notice how much quicker it starts and turns over . Probably the main reason for the battery upgrade when start stop was introduced

Clocks are resetting because the battery is falling below the 6V needed for the body computer

Just connect a scanner and data log the the battery voltage as you crank

Your doing exactly the same as the first battery test but instead of a short in the tester you are using the short in the winding in starter

Instead of an analog needle you have a graph which you can save as a reference

Shouldn’t fall below 10V there’s a few losses so 9.5V


Test I a few years later at the same temperature and you will be able to compare and calculate the capacity lost

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Get a jump start from a big diesel car and you really notice how much quicker it starts and turns over . Probably the main reason for the battery upgrade when start stop was introduced

Clocks are resetting because the battery is falling below the 6V needed for the body computer

Just connect a scanner and data log the the battery voltage as you crank

Your doing exactly the same as the first battery test but instead of a short in the tester you are using the short in the winding in starter

Instead of an analog needle you have a graph which you can save as a reference

Shouldn’t fall below 10V there’s a few losses so 9.5V


Test I a few years later at the same temperature and you will be able to compare and calculate the capacity lost

Thanks Koalar, useful knowledge from you as always! Of course that'll work on the Fiats but I don't have a scanner that'll work on the other vehicles. Could get a rough idea by connecting up the multimeter, disabling the ignition and observing voltage whilst cranking but a tester would make things so much easier. Bit of a luxury though as I'm doing less of this sort of stuff these days.

 

[koalar]

Thanks Koalar, useful knowledge from you as always! Of course that'll work on the Fiats but I don't have a scanner that'll work on the other vehicles. Could get a rough idea by connecting up the multimeter, disabling the ignition and observing voltage whilst cranking but a tester would make things so much easier. Bit of a luxury though as I'm doing less of this sort of stuff these days.

Yes
No
Maybe

Digital multi meters are weird

They don’t instantly measure the voltage. They take several reading and then do an average and display that. This is to keep the display stable so you can read it otherwise you would just see a blur. Imagine the last digit drop from 9 to 0 in 1 second all you would see is an 8 as all the elements are lit

They all do it because they have to. It’s going to depend on brand an model

I have several multimeters here a couple

The one on the left would be useless.
On the right would still lag behind but useful

A cheap scanner for any car with data logging is £15

Shame nobody makes one of these 5V to 15V with 10 LEDs and has clips I looked in the summer nearly made my own

 

[jrkitching]

I've heard it said that you can get a reasonable idea of the amount of battery wear by disconnecting it from the car, fully charging it, leaving it to stand for 24hrs, and then measuring the voltage.

I did have a chart correalating the measured voltage with the percent of battery life left, but unfortunately have misplaced it - I'll keep looking.

 

[koalar]

I've heard it said that you can get a reasonable idea of the amount of battery wear by disconnecting it from the car, fully charging it, leaving it to stand for 24hrs, and then measuring the voltage.

I did have a chart correalating the measured voltage with the percent of battery life left, but unfortunately have misplaced it - I'll keep looking.

12.6V is the correct voltage of a fully charged battery at rest

But both the internal resistance and voltage changes with temperature

I haven’t seen a reliable way to test a battery.

But a multimeter can give you an idea

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

I've heard it said that you can get a reasonable idea of the amount of battery wear by disconnecting it from the car, fully charging it, leaving it to stand for 24hrs, and then measuring the voltage.

I did have a chart correalating the measured voltage with the percent of battery life left, but unfortunately have misplaced it - I'll keep looking.

Just found this, hope it's useful: https://footprinthero.com/lead-acid-battery-voltage-charts