Possible battery or charging problem

[VroomVroomClonk]

I'm not sure if I actually do have a problem or not, and I'd like to hear any thoughts people have on the subject please.

I fitted a new Yuasa 5000 096 battery just over a year ago, and recently the starter motor has been struggling to turn the engine fast enough to start.
As the battery is so new, I assumed that wasn't the problem and so I did a parasitic drain test on the car wiring, but that is only 25mA which sounds fine to me.
I then found in Vida a "Quick Test of Alternator function", so I ran that and all the results come back within the specified values.
The battery voltage measured with a meter across the terminals after the car has stood for a few days is 11.5V. After I've taken the car for a 10 mile run, then stopped the engine, the voltage is 12.5V. After leaving it overnight again it has dropped to 11.75V. The Voltage when the engine is running at idle is 14.5V.

With Covid, the car isn't being used very much. I'm retired, so for several months now the car is usually only used once a week for a shopping trip to the nearest town which is 10 miles away. As it's winter, and narrow country lanes, I have my dip headlights on for all of that 20 miles per week.

So, do people think I do have some kind of battery or charging problem, or am I just not using the car enough for the battery to get properly charged up?

Thank you.

[ASt85]

Originally Posted by VroomVroomClonk

I fitted a new Yuasa 5000 096 battery just over a year ago & etc
do people think I do have some kind of battery or charging problem, or am I just not using the car enough for the battery to get properly charged up?

Thank you.

I think you may have arrived at the correct answer re lack of use to maintain the charge level. It takes around 10 miles of continuous driving ie non "stop-start" driving to replace the charge used in starting the car.

I replaced an original 16 year old Volvo battery a few weeks ago which was giving a very slow turn over. It wasn't that the old battery wasn't holding the charge, it was more to do with battery connector posts that had been smothered in non-conductive grease under the clamp which reduced the area of contact.

NB - even though your battery is only a year old it is worth checking the voltage periodically. I fitted an Exide premium 5 year guarantee battery in my previous V70. The battery failed after only 2 years due to a dead cell. Eurocarparts replaced it but the new one only came with a 3 year "balance" guarantee.

[oragex]

Originally Posted by VroomVroomClonk

has stood for a few days is 11.5V. After I've taken the car for a 10 mile run, then stopped the engine, the voltage is 12.5V. After leaving it overnight again it has dropped to 11.75V. The Voltage when the engine is running at idle is 14.5V.

With Covid, the car isn't being used very much. I'm retired, so for several months now the car is usually only used once a week for a shopping trip to the nearest town which is 10 miles away. As it's winter, and narrow country lanes, I have my dip headlights on for all of that 20 miles per week.

So, do people think I do have some kind of battery or charging problem, or am I just not using the car enough for the battery to get properly charged up?

Thank you.

Nice user name Which year model is the car, and how many miles ?

From my experience, I think a 20 miles weekly trip is plenty enough to recharge a NEW battery if all power cables are in good condition and if there is no drain overnight. I watched my new battery getting fully charged from overnight sitting and it barely took 2-3 minutes driving. Even after 2-3 days sitting it's quickly charging back to 100%. Again, this is on a new (quality) battery and with no parasitic drain. Old batteries may still crank the engien very well, but they actually no longer can be fully charged - they may have as low as 70% or 50% charge at most and still crank very well.

I believe your problem is indeed a current drain, despite your reading. 25mA is actually a little high, I would rather like to see no more than 10-15mA. However, bear in mind that you may be measuring a drain at one moment, and the actual drain may start say 1-2 hours later. It's not always a drain that happens continuously and at the same rate.

To measure the battery after driving the car, you need to disconnect one cable, wait perhaps 1h for the battery voltage to stabilize (it sits higher right after driving because the alternator puts higher voltage), then without connecting it measure between the posts. A 11.5v battery is almost fully discharged, perhaps some 20% charge remaining. The 14.5v alternator voltage (engine at idle) is a good voltage and indicates the battery is being charged. From my past experience, if a battery keeps being discharged significantly while the car is parked, the battery gets worn within several months and will no longer accept a full charge - even the best battery brand out there. Make sure you find the current drain first before thinking of replacing the battery. Leads could be the infamous alarm siren (simply remove the fuse). Have a look at this blog at the Battery drain overnight section and at the alarm siren section https://volvos60xc70xc90buyersguide.home.blog/

[reggit]

I’m going to suggest the engine earth strap at the starter motor end is expiring.
They tend to fray and break just underneath the insulation shroud.

If it’s showing signs of age or green corrosion change it for a heavy duty version from eBay.

[TDIvolvo]

Originally Posted by VroomVroomClonk

The battery voltage measured with a meter across the terminals after the car has stood for a few days is 11.5V.

Far too low, that is actually the definition of flat in a 12V battery! Even 12V would be too low.

First, how did you measure the current draw? All doors, windows, bonnet etc. closed and car locked and left for about 10minutes is the way to check draw as the systems don't shut down immediately and the CEM remains active while things are happening like doors opening and closing and what not.

I would get the car onto charge, over Christmas our cars didn't turn a wheel for nearly 3 weeks. I put both of my cars on charge and my wife's car on charge because otherwise the combo of no movement and the -10 C temperatures I knew we were on a slippery slope to battery death. I enjoy the tinkering and the maintenance aspect so I set up my 2 smart chargers and charged everything and left them on trickle for a few days then swapped them around the other cars to keep everything at the ready. The Volvo was down to about 12.2V which is almost unheard of and my wife's car was down about 11.9 (I am now wary of this battery and expect it might only survive out of this winter).

Alternators are also terrible at charging profoundly discharged batteries.

On the 25mA draw, that is 0.025mAh - so it would take 40 hours to remove 1Ah from the battery, so in 2 weeks it would be 8.4Ah - 3 would be 12.6Ah - an 096 is typically about 80Ah, that should be fine losing only around 16% of capacity - the only downside would be if you are a start stop sort of chap.

I am overly battery conscious, to the point I would take a slightly longer route to the supermarket if I was aware I was on a lot of short journeys, my motto is "Always see full operating temp" - if you go for days on short trips and never see full op temp then that is a good indicator your battery is not having much fun too and the bigger the engine, slower to warm and therefore harder on the battery on start-up, as a rule it works quite well - plugging the charger into my car is fairly common (I sometimes don't drive much) I just do it as standard now when I am aware I have been giving the battery a hard time. I have a classic car in the garage that until recently I was not driving much, moving it in and out the garage to make space to work in there hammers the battery so it lives on a charger.

My neighbour does my head in, she is always moving her car about a meter here and meter there, on off on off on off then drives 5 minutes to the shops. Oddly she seems to have to get an awful lot of new batteries (I went to meet her once with some jumper cables). She doesn't like idling, apparently it is bad for the environment, I asked her about the lead acid battery! Blank look on her face.

[TDIvolvo]

Originally Posted by reggit

I’m going to suggest the engine earth strap at the starter motor end is expiring.
They tend to fray and break just underneath the insulation shroud.

If it’s showing signs of age or green corrosion change it for a heavy duty version from eBay.

How would that solve his flat battery issue?

If he has 11.5V at the battery terminals then he is already onto a loser.

[VroomVroomClonk]

Thank you for the replies. The car is a V70, 2.4 T5, 2005 with about 138,000 miles.

I should also have mentioned that it had a new alarm siren unit fitted about 4 years ago.

The procedure I used for measuring the current drain was from CheshireD5's video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCMQE2tgRSE
So, an ammeter connected in series between the battery negative terminal and the lead to the car. Then lock and alarm the car but with the tailgate and doors open. I did have to set the half-guard alarm button on the dash to disable the internal mass movement sensor and prevent the alarm going off.
Then wait, watching the current drain drop and drop until about 15minutes later it was steady at about 25mA. SiRobb says in the video that the Volvo specified drain is 37mA for his car. I know his is diesel and mine petrol, but I assumed the drain should be about the same?

So today I disconnected the battery negative terminal and put the battery on charge for 6 hours. It started at 5 amps, and dropped gradually to 1 amp by the time I finished. I checked the battery voltage again with a voltmeter after disconnecting the charger, and got 12.5 volts. I have left the negative disconnected and I plan to check the voltage again tomorrow, and again Wednesday and again on Thursday, all without reconnecting the battery, to see how far it drops.

Is it fair for me to say that if the voltage drops to 11.5V again over the next couple of days, but without being connected to anything, then the battery must be faulty? The battery came with a 5 year warranty and is only about 1 year old. But it seems that for me to claim on the warranty I have to send the battery back to the retailer, who will then send it back to the manufacturer, and only after the manufacturer agrees it is faulty will they replace it. So I do need to be very sure that the battery is the problem before I start down that route.

[reggit]

Originally Posted by TDIvolvo

How would that solve his flat battery issue?

If he has 11.5V at the battery terminals then he is already onto a loser.

Haha, missed that!

[oragex]

Originally Posted by VroomVroomClonk

Thank you for the replies. The car is a V70, 2.4 T5, 2005 with about 138,000 miles.

I should also have mentioned that it had a new alarm siren unit fitted about 4 years ago.

The procedure I used for measuring the current drain was from CheshireD5's video here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCMQE2tgRSE
So, an ammeter connected in series between the battery negative terminal and the lead to the car. Then lock and alarm the car but with the tailgate and doors open. I did have to set the half-guard alarm button on the dash to disable the internal mass movement sensor and prevent the alarm going off.
Then wait, watching the current drain drop and drop until about 15minutes later it was steady at about 25mA. SiRobb says in the video that the Volvo specified drain is 37mA for his car. I know his is diesel and mine petrol, but I assumed the drain should be about the same?

You don't need to lock/alarm the car, but I guess the idea is to have current through the alarm siren to check if it's draining current. But if you know the siren is fine, you may leave the car unlocked and actually may leave doors or hood open as well. The way I test for drain is I remove the key from the ignition, put the voltmeter on the 10A plug and turn it on on , undo a battery post and connect the voltmeter in serial, then from the moment it's connected I wait exactly 10 minutes without touching anything. At 10 min sharp, by the second, all car computers will shut down and any interior light should be already off - on my S60 the trunk lights don't turn off so I disconnect them in advance. After 10 min sharp the voltmeter should show 0.01 or 0.02 if there's no current drain.

As for the battery voltage, 12.5 is usually not a full charge, I would expect to see 12.7v at room temperature for 100% charge. it may mean the charger needs more time, or it may mean the battery has wear to it and no longer accepts a full charge (which in the long term puts stress on the alternator regulator pack)

[TDIvolvo]

Originally Posted by VroomVroomClonk

Is it fair for me to say that if the voltage drops to 11.5V again over the next couple of days, but without being connected to anything, then the battery must be faulty? The battery came with a 5 year warranty and is only about 1 year old. But it seems that for me to claim on the warranty I have to send the battery back to the retailer, who will then send it back to the manufacturer, and only after the manufacturer agrees it is faulty will they replace it. So I do need to be very sure that the battery is the problem before I start down that route.

Yes that is correct, only thing you could do additionally is fully charge and load test it with a plate load tester (looks like two screwdrivers with a big resistive load in the middle and a voltmeter across it) - the rubbish little "battery testers" with a little lightweight cord are a joke as they apply about 10A, not the several hundred needed by a starter and potentially for 2-10 seconds on a cold cold diesel which an 096 should start no bother. I have a 2005 T5 so same engine as you and to be honest they are easy easy starters, you barely need to get one piston over TDC (and being a 5 cyl that happens more frequently that a 4!) and it will go, battery in these cars really ought to get an easy life. I have a Bosch S4 just for the record.

Now if a full battery cannot hold charge for 4-5 days then it is knackered let alone a few days. If you really want to give it the best chance bring it inside to warmer temps, it should hold a good charge for a fortnight easily before it even loses half a volt.

On the warranty, sounds a bit convoluted, I use a local factor and they just look at the receipt and swap the battery for you. Your contract is with the vendor, however, in fairness over a year old might be a bigger fight but still ought to be dealt with via the vendor.

I have a Yuasa supercargo in my Land Rover, not impressed. Spent more on it and it's massive, 1000CCA 120Ah - it is not old, year and a half maybe and will not start the vehicle after 2 weeks, the Landy only had a clock at about 2mA! I am wondering if Yuasa have lived by their name too long and dropped the quality. I like Varta and Bosch for batteries now.