Mike88 Posted October 26, 2014 Share Posted October 26, 2014 To most people on here this will be a stupid post but nonetheless I would like to know the answer. A couple of weeks ago a day after arriving in Spain my vehicle battery went flat. I charged the battery and within 20 minutes of disconnecting the charger the battery indicator showed around 9.5 volts. I thought my battery had always been maintained well. The vehicle was manufactured in February 2010 and the battery is the original. I have a 90 watt solar panel giving the vehicle battery priority on the SMART charger. The vehicle is used primarily for long distances. I admit I have never checked the electrolyte because the vehicle handbook informs me the battery does not require maintenance. The battery was replaced in Spain at a cost of 245 euros. It was a Yuasa 110 amp which was the same spec as the original. The alternator output has not been checked but since the new battery was fitted I have returned from Spain with no issues. My questions: 1.Do batteries fail for no apparent reason? My suspicion is that it was "cooked" due to receiving a charge from the site bollard, the solar panel and the vehicle alternator. I know this should not happen but that it my only explanation. 2. Now I am back in the UK do I need to have the alternator or anything checked? Is this something I can do myself and if so how? I can get hold of a multimeter but haven't a clue how to use one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will86 Posted October 26, 2014 Share Posted October 26, 2014 Nothing in life is perfect Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Joe90 Posted October 26, 2014 Share Posted October 26, 2014 You've not experienced anything that many others do, one day appears fine, the next day it's knackered, except that it probably wasn't fine at all, both my car, and van batteries let me down during this year, both quite suddenly. One of which was just over 12 months old, and a premium brand with 5 year guarantee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartO Posted October 26, 2014 Share Posted October 26, 2014 What bad luck. Yuasa are a good make. Unfortunately lead acid batteries can and often do fail suddenly because an individual cell fails. Our starter battery did this last Summer. Was it the starter battery? Your battery might have been older than you think, and might have been sitting in a stored chassis cab, not being charged, for some sime before conversion to a MH. These and other factors could explain its short life. From your viewpoint this is just bad luck. It was particularly bad luck to have to pay 265€ for a replacement but when a battery fails you are sometimes in a "captive customer" situation. It will be worth checking your vehicle's electrics, or having them checked, but its probably been a freak event. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike88 Posted October 26, 2014 Author Share Posted October 26, 2014 Yes it was the starter battery. The original battery was branded "Fiat" and the replacement, Yuasa costing 245 euros. The same battery is £175 in Halfords so the amount paid in Spain was not too bad. I have owned the vehicle since new in April 2010. The vehicle was manufactured in 2010 ans converted in March 2010. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lennyhb Posted October 26, 2014 Share Posted October 26, 2014 Batteries can last anything from 2 years up to over 6 years, with best quality modern batteries often lasting 5-6 years 4½ years is a little be short but not an unreasonable time for a battery starting a diesel engine. As Stuart says if the conversion had not been done straight away or the van has been at the dealers a while it could account for it. The life of a standard wet cell battery will be considerably shortened if it fully discharged just once. You can check when the chassis came out of the factory by the VIN number and the Certificate of Conformity will tell when the conversion was completed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracker Posted October 26, 2014 Share Posted October 26, 2014 Why did it fail? Something broke inside the battery is the glib answer, but why that happened is next to impossible to find out. Had the battery been one of the capped cell type you could have checked the SG of each cell to find out which one(s) had failed but that still would not tell you why. All you can do now is check the voltage and regulation of each of your charging sources but as none of them appear to have damaged the leisure battery(ies) and as long as they are all working as usual I doubt there is a lot to learn. Simplistically on any form of vehicle battery charging you should expect see about 13.8 to 14.2 volts going into the battery but on start up that could be as high as 15.0 volts dropping to around 13.4 ish when the battery is fully charged. The voltage going into the leisure battery is often limited to around 13.8 by the on board charger and by the alternator wiring to avoid 'gassing' off of hydrogen that can happen at higher voltages but the solar regulator may well have a higher setting? But even those voltages vary according to which expert you ask! It is not a simple topic and although I understand the basics the techy bits are beyond me, but basic voltage checking is simple enough. You will need to disconnect the solar to be able to check the alternator but best not to leave the solar input connected to the regulator without an output load or you can damage some regulators by so doing. Hope this makes sense but if not please ask before checking as you can do a lot of expensive damage if you do the wrong thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike88 Posted October 26, 2014 Author Share Posted October 26, 2014 Thanks for that explanation. So what would happen if the battery failed as you drive. Would the vehicle stop or would it fail to start after you have stopped? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sshortcircuit Posted October 26, 2014 Share Posted October 26, 2014 The engine will continue to run although once the engine was stopped you would not be able to restart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lennyhb Posted October 26, 2014 Share Posted October 26, 2014 Depends on how the battery has failed, the battery also acts as to smooth the output from the alternator. I had one fail once on a car, if you jump start the engine it would run on tickover, if you put side lights on they would flicker and were dim, if you tried driving the car the engine would die after a few yards & all the electronics were going haywire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Joe90 Posted October 26, 2014 Share Posted October 26, 2014 sshortcircuit - 2014-10-26 3:55 PM The engine will continue to run although once the engine was stopped you would not be able to restart. Trying not to be pedantic, I know that would have been the case with a diesel years ago, but given today's electronics perhaps not once the ECU saw a significant drop in voltage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyishuk Posted October 28, 2014 Share Posted October 28, 2014 Its strange how some battery s behave. I had a similar experience with an Daihatsu Four track years ago. After fighting to get the battery out, (Took three of us !). The garage guy tested the battery with everything he had, old technology (Hot tongs and a meter) to state of the art technology. All said the battery was fine, Just seemed not to produce ""ommph"" fast enough to to do the job. A new battery sorted out the problem On reflection it may have been an earthing problem, but an inspection showed no problems, corrosion or wear. Rgds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
euroserv Posted October 28, 2014 Share Posted October 28, 2014 Years ago, when diesel engines were very simple and had minimal electrical requirements you could easily develop a battery problem while driving and as long as you used the indicators and such sparingly and did not use the headlamps, you could have driven for a long time with no problems until you turned the engine off. Nowadays, if there is no charge going into the battery or it can't hold one the electrical demands of keeping the engine running could flatten the battery quite quickly but you would expect to see a warning light glowing to warn you about it. You could, in theory 'run out of electricity' and be left literally in the dark. An X250 vehicle, used every day should see a battery last 7 or 8 years quite easily but used infrequently I would say that 4 years would be very good indeed. If the charging circuit is working properly you should see a solid 14.4V at idle. After running the engine for while you should be able to leave it for an hour and still see at least 12.4V in the battery. Most sit at just below 13V for many days without being charged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NathanaelAngle Posted October 29, 2014 Share Posted October 29, 2014 Mike88 - 2014-10-26 7:36 AM To most people on here this will be a stupid post but nonetheless I would like to know the answer. A couple of weeks ago a day after arriving in Spain my vehicle battery went flat. I charged the battery and within 20 minutes of disconnecting the charger the battery indicator showed around 9.5 volts. I thought my battery had always been maintained well. The vehicle was manufactured in February 2010 and the battery is the original. I have a 90 watt solar panel giving the vehicle battery priority on the SMART charger. The vehicle is used primarily for long distances. I admit I have never checked the electrolyte because the vehicle handbook informs me the battery does not require maintenance. The battery was replaced in Spain at a cost of 245 euros. It was a Yuasa 110 amp which was the same spec as the original. The alternator output has not been checked but since the new battery was fitted I have returned from Spain with no issues. My questions: 1.Do batteries fail for no apparent reason? My suspicion is that it was "cooked" due to receiving a charge from the site bollard, the solar panel and the vehicle alternator. I know this should not happen but that it my only explanation. 2. Now I am back in the UK do I need to have the alternator or anything checked? Is this something I can do myself and if so how? I can get hold of a multimeter but haven't a clue how to use one. i think you are taking it too negatively.. I have got similar system and it does work fine.. Just be relax and use it.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracker Posted October 29, 2014 Share Posted October 29, 2014 NathanaelAngle - 2014-10-29 6:15 AM i think you are taking it too negatively.. I have got similar system and it does work fine.. Just be relax and use it.. Mike is doing the right thing because burying one's head in the sand does not make any potential problem go away so it makes perfect sense to me to check out the full system following any fault because being stranded in a foreign country with cost, language, inconvenience and loss of relax time implications is no joke. Too many unexpected things can fail without leaving space for those you know about and I call it peace of mind which follows on from Murphy's Law regarding reliability! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NathanaelAngle Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 NathanaelAngle - 2014-10-29 6:15 AM Mike88 - 2014-10-26 7:36 AM To most people on here this will be a stupid post but nonetheless I would like to know the answer. A couple of weeks ago a day after arriving in Spain my vehicle battery went flat. I charged the battery and within 20 minutes of disconnecting the charger the battery indicator showed around 9.5 volts. I thought my battery had always been maintained well. The vehicle was manufactured in February 2010 and the battery is the original. I have a 90 watt solar panel giving the vehicle battery priority on the SMART charger. The vehicle is used primarily for long distances. I admit I have never checked the electrolyte because the vehicle handbook informs me the battery does not require maintenance. The battery was replaced in Spain at a cost of 245 euros. It was a Yuasa 110 amp which was the same spec as the original. The alternator output has not been checked but since the new battery was fitted I have returned from Spain with no issues. My questions: 1.Do batteries fail for no apparent reason? My suspicion is that it was "cooked" due to receiving a charge from the site bollard, the solar panel and the vehicle alternator. I know this should not happen but that it my only explanation. 2. Now I am back in the UK do I need to have the alternator or anything checked? Is this something I can do myself and if so how? I can get hold of a multimeter but haven't a clue how to use one. i think you are taking it too negatively.. I have got similar system and it does work fine.. Just be relax and use it.. ya it could be safe decision.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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