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Are the batteries knackered?

D

Dave

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 6, 2010
Messages
342
They're about 6 years old, and have always been on the slow charger when not in use. But I left the interior lights on for over a week, and they're completely flat. After a few hours on a regular charger, they hold enough power to work the dash lights for about 10 seconds. Plus the internal fuse on the charger keeps cutting out.

The sight glass on the DS battery shows white - knackered.


Is it worth buy a big fancy charger and trying to bring them back to life, or are they as good as dead?
 
If one or more of the cells in either battery is duff then, personally, I don't think a fancy charger will save it/them. It may recover them enough to start the car but, in my experience of a similar situation, the life and capacity of the batts will be seriously reduced. The older the batts get the less tolerant they become of such treatment. I did a similar thing with an almost new motorcycle battery, let the charge get so low it was kicking out around 7 volts. Got it back up with one of the so called 'intelligent" chargers but it only lasted a few months after that and had to charge it regularly if it was stood for more than a week or so. If you take it to any decent battery supplier they should be able to do a simple load/capacity test on them.JMO
 
Given the age and they were completely drained, I would agree with Towpack. they may recover enough to lull you into a false sense of security, as mine did and then let you down - in the middle of a field at a steam rally, 100s of vehicles and no one wants to give you a jump start, even though you have the leads!

John
 
Bin them.

My other half left the lights on about 3 times in my 80 and killed them to a similar extent. I've seen it on lots of cars/tractors and lorriesover the years.

Normal batteries just aren't designed to be fully discharged like that and recover. At six years old you got a good spin out of them anyway!!
 
I've binned them!

I really need to use it tomorrow any way, so went to the local car parts place and bought a pair with opposite poles. They're not as manly as the previous ones, but were the only one that could be used as a pair. It started on the button after fitting!
 
Change the interior lights for LED's they have a negligible drain on the batteries if you leave them on again.
 
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Chas said:
Change the interior lights for LED's they have a negligible drain on the batteries if you leave them on again.
Click to expand...

Just changed the door mounted foot lights for LED's today. Loads more light and just under half the current drain of the old filament bulbs. When you have the rear tailgate open these door lights stay on for some reason.
 
Doesn't surprise me. My tailgate and front doors operate the middle and rear interior lights. The rear doors don't operate anything and the front interior light only operates from it's switch. Weird.


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pberrey said:
Doesn't surprise me. My tailgate and front doors operate the middle and rear interior lights. The rear doors don't operate anything and the front interior light only operates from it's switch. Weird.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

All my doors and the tailgate operate all the interior lights except for the one above the dash which has its own switch. Do you have switches on your rear doors? if so maybe they are bu66ered. :think:
 
Mine work as per Chas's comment, want to change to LED's and apparently there is a panel of LEDs that fits straight in?

regards

Dave
 
Thanks for those links guys, sorry Dave small amount of thread hijacking went on there :oops:

I agree the batteries are toast and with winter on it's way........

regards

Dave
 
Last edited:
Hi guys, just throw my two bits in as batteries are my job

firstly good batteries are designed to last about 6 years so they are due for replacement anyway. As for chargers, there are very few chargers that will charge from Zero volts. All batteries will charge even faulty ones, here is a trick to get your standard charger to charge batteries that are dead flat.

Get a car that is running and put jump leads from this to the flat battery (this wont work if the flat battery you are trying to charge is attached to a car) leave it connected to the running car for 30 mins. This will put enough surface charge on the battery so you can then charge the flat battery with a standard charger.

if a battery is good it will charged to 13.25 volts, then drop overnight to 12.6-12.7 volts and drop no further

hope this helps

Giles
 
Most of the new generation of fully auto chargers need a residual voltage coming from the battery before they kick in. If the voltage is too low they won't 'see' the battery so won't work. I also have an old basic charger that simply gives out a charge voltage/current with no fancy electronics, I've used this before to kick start a really low battery when the new one wouldn't fire up.
As an aside, the 2 Varta's on my 80 were on when I bought it over 9 years ago and they're still going strong so maybe I've just been lucky in getting 2 very good cell sets.
 
Last edited:
yeh old bench chargers are great, with a "boost" or "Start" will do exactly the same thing if you are have one. 9 years is very good but its not rare,,,Don't think you would get that from Varta today,BMW sold them and they are now owned by JCI an American company and we have noticed an increase in warranties, we guess this is because I believe they use recycled lead now when before it was virgin.

Giles
 
I bought a small C-Tek charger the other day, as I needed a new one anyway. I stuck it on one of the knackered batteries, and after 3 days it finally finished its stuff. The sight glass still shows black (discharged), but it's been running a 21w light bulb for the last 24 hours, so it's obviously held a modest amount of charge.

I've now connected the charger to the other battery that was originally showing white (knackered), but is now black. So we'll see what happens. I hope to maybe get something from one of them as I need a new battery for my small snow plow tractor, that spends all winter on a slow charger anyway.
 
hi there

charge indicators on batteries are only a guide, all they are is a green ball that floats on the acid, when a battery is charged the acid is high and the green ball is close to the lens. Black is flat and clear means there is not enough acid in the battery any more, if you were to drill whole in the cell with the indicator the lens will go clear. CTek chargers are ok but CTEK have purchased a company called Keepower and they make great chargers and will charge from Zero volts which a most CTEKs won't

Giles
 
My Batteries both run quite well i've got the duel battery setup with altermeters on both I'll try find my setup for you
 
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