General Alanis Morisette levels of irony

[larkim]

Thanks Dave - appreciate the insights.

I've long thought that some basic understanding of real world car mechanics should be more widespread and very aware that I lack it. I'm a degree educated, professionally qualified senior manager and have a few brain cells to rub together. Yet I'm broadly unaware of what most things on an ICE do, or basic things that I can do / not do which will impact how my car works. Maybe that's fine, but I've often been somewhat "bamboozled" by garages etc and discovered with hindsight that if I'd had a little more basic knowledge I might have been able to either get a better price or dispute whether a proposed solution was the route I wanted to go down.

Fingers crossed the battery simply restores order and I can put this thread to bed!

 

[DaveMcT]

This is handy if you want to know how the battery works
https://batteryuniversity.com/

 

[AndyRKett]

There are 6 cells in a normal car battery, they produce about 2volts each and so if the battery was reading only 10v it’s safe to assume you have a dead cell in the battery. As Dave pointed out driving it can cause problems overloading the alternator as it try’s to charge a dead battery that’s not taking the charge. Also a car will start and run without a battery but you can get a lot more noise in the currents because the battery acts like a big electrical filter soaking up the spikes and providing a little power in the lows.