Technical Signs a car battery is on the way out?

[Chrishandscombe]

Hi all..

I have a 2.0 165, a couple of weeks back i started the car at night and one headlight came on along with the yellow warning triangle. Strangely, no bulb error light.

Switched the car off and on again and low and behold, everything works ok.

Next morning, switched it on, again in the dark and the n/s headlight came on followed by the o/s a few seconds later. No warning lights.

Plugged Multi scan into it and it came up with oil pressure sensor pending. Cleared it and the fault hasn't returned. Fast forward a couple of weeks up to now and the key fob... i can be 15 feet away and unlocks / locks fine and i can be close up and its ok. Last few days have been very hit and miss with it working.

From what i have gathered on here, the start of electrical niggles like this tend to point towards the engine battery being on the way out..

Alternator is charging around 14v and with the engine off, battery was holding at 13.10v.

Cheers!

 

[g8rpi]

Hi,
Sound like there is no obvious battery failure, but I assume the 13.1V was read with MES after the engine was shut down. You really need to measure the battery voltage in the morning before starting the engine. Use a digital multimeter if you have one or if you only have MES, set up your computer and plug in the interface. Then turn on the ignition (don't start engine), connect to the engine ECU an read the voltage. Or use the meter directly across the battery. Voltage should not be less than 12V. Turn the headlamps on and make sure the voltage does not drop below about 11.5V.
It sounds more like you have a bad earth connection though. One check if you have a digital meter is turn on headlights (engine OFF) and measure the voltage between the battery negative terminal (probr right on the lead post not the clamp) and the engine block. If it reads more than 0.5V you have a bad earth.
HTH,
Robert G8RPI.

 

[Chrishandscombe]

Cheers for the reply,

Whats MES?

i had a quick look at the terminals, they would benefit from a good clean!

 

[Chrishandscombe]

i should read things properly when I'm hungry!!

Voltage was checked with the engine off with a multi meter.

Ill clean up the terminals and go from there

 

[damir78]

I had this problem once with car reporting strange alarms once it started.
I shut it off immediately and when I wanted to start it again, nothing happened.
At that point I was sure the battery was dead.

Once I replaced the battery, everything was fine.
However, your problem sounds more intermittent to me (cables, wirings, contacts, ...)

Btw. I had 2 dead batteries in 5 years on my Bravo

 

[Chrishandscombe]

still on the original battery

ill just run it until it has to be changed