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Technical battery problem

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Technical battery problem

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redcat

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After 5 days of not using my 2005 stilo jtd the battery is flat,well all the dash lights worked and it did try to turn the engine over. i only got the car 6 days ago, so i looked at it and its a bosch 540A 60AH battery which after searching the forum its obviously not the correct one for my car, would this battery drain its self over 5 days because its not man enough for the stilo jtd or is there a parasitic drain what do you guys reckon? any way luckily i had a nearly new 640A battery which i swapped over and it fired up first time so il leave it and see what happens it does have an after market head unit fitted which ive found can cause a drain, why i dont no cause all head units i presume need a permanent live for there memory?:)
 
Ok so your battery does indeed look a little bit not up to it, especially for a diesel car which will need more current for starting in cold weather... I would say go for a 74 Ah new battery . If the battery was good , I doubt that parasitic drain from an aftermarket HU would be enough to completely drain it in such a short time. I would say your problem is a combination of cold weather (which kills batteries) and old battery (presuming that you do not know when it was installed)
 
I would say it was a dud battery, fully charged before passing it on, and so doesn't retain its charge, relying on being driven pretty much everyday to keep life in it. You've done exactly the right thing, as a process of elimination, and hopefully all will be ok now with the other battery in it. If the donor battery goes the same way, then I would start thinking of a draw parasitic or otherwise. I'm in the habbit, particularly for the winter months, of always keeping a good spare battery in tip top condition on trickle charge in case car or van need it. Whether or not a lower A rate battery actually makes much of a difference I'm not sure, for example, my Ducato van has and will run as equally well on a car, lower output battery as it will with a heavy duty leisure battery double the size....hopefully the electrical tech's among us will be able to give more detail on this particular query.
 
Yeah Visconti thats what i was thinking hoping, the original battery never did spin the engine over fast enough when i was viewing and picked up the car plus i bought it from a breakers yard so they could have put any old battery on it, :)
 
Pick up a multi-meter from Wilkinsons, Maplin, etc (mine cost me about £12). There are looooooads of threads on here about hunting down phantom battery drain.
As for the headunit, yes they do have a permanent feed and also an ignition feed. Some people (read: idiots) like to wire the ignition feed to a permanent source, causing the headunit to leech amps from the battery as if the car was running.
 
Probably they did put the old battery in !


The JTD engine is one of the most reliable engines around. Your stilo will probably have far less electrical issues than the petrol ones.


Just give it regular oil and filter changes (at least once a year) and it should serve you quite well. These are very underrated cars but can give you satisfying ownership if you look after the basic maintenance.




Regards


Edit: Of course , as Eclipse said, having a multimeter is practically a must when you are dealing with these kind of issues.
 
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schummy027 im charging the original battery so il give it a voltage test in the morning to see weather its a dud, the car itself is in very good nick with a hundred and three thousand miles every thing works on it bar the fuel gauge it does move but the needle is upside down at the moment :confused: im impressed with torqe its got, sort of thought about a 150 multi jet diesel after driving this one but to late for that now
 
redcat said:
schummy027 im charging the original battery so il give it a voltage test in the morning to see weather its a dud, the car itself is in very good nick with a hundred and three thousand miles every thing works on it bar the fuel gauge it does move but the needle is upside down at the moment :confused: im impressed with torqe its got, sort of thought about a 150 multi jet diesel after driving this one but to late for that now
Click to expand...

I think they are great cars, and you should be tickety boo with yours once you get to know it a bit better.

Sadly they are a good example of a car being way ahead of its time!.....if they had come out over the last 5 years, I recon they would have been a best seller, because much of what they had on them then, are on new cars now.

The fuel gauge issue could just be a sticking or broken float, which is normally attached to the fuel pump within the fuel tank.
 
schummy027 said:
Sadly they are a good example of a car being way ahead of its time!.....if they had come out over the last 5 years, I recon they would have been a best seller, because much of what they had on them then, are on new cars now.
Click to expand...

thumb.gif

Could not agree more..!
 
The original battery charged up over night to 14.7 volts, the new one i fitted to the car read 12.5 to 12.7 volts, after standing 17 hours,also the black alloy 17" wheels fitted are abarth wheels, took it for a drive to the nearest fiat dealer and got the paint code its 132 salsa red, new key fob £450 wont be getting one from fiatb but the stilo did drive really good comfortable and handles ok with the 225 45 17 tyres i agree they were ahead of there time
 
Yes redcat, that was a very good course of action from your side, tyre size is spot on I have run those dimensions on an Alfa GTV and it used to handle as it was on rails..
Regarding the battery, as you said the original one when fully charged read 14.7 v . Possible, if you took the voltage reading immediately upon disconnecting it from charger. Leave it for about an hour for the voltage to stabilize, and you shall get the reading between 12.2 and 12.5 volts.
New battery reading is OK. It will be around 13.8 - 14 once the motor is running , which is normal. Mind you, it is not only about voltage, it is the battery`s ability to keep charge that matters also. I have seen dead batteries showing 12 decimal something volts when charged but once connected to the car losing the charge over the night.


keep up the good work and keep us posted. Congratulations for saving that stilo from being crushed to death. It would be a waste as that car can last for another couple of years and its safety features are good even by today`s standards.
 
Ive just checked the voltage on the original after its stood all its 12.2 to 12.5 as you said Visconti il check it again at the end of the week, also discovered to day that the none original head unit isnt wired in to be switched off by the ignition which is as i suspected so il use the switched live from the cigerette lighter thats some thing for tomorrow, i must say the forum is a great source of information for me, thanks for your advice Visconti
 
Maigretnz how does this cable and multicuscan work is it a disc i would put in my lap top and plug into my stilo some were?
 
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