Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => General Car Chat => Topic started by: JesterRT on 02 May 2010, 23:18:27
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Whereabouts would folk recommend getting new batteries from? Got 8v reading across mine, so think it may be time for a new'un. :)
Lost count of the times it's been jumped, charged, etc and after a 45 min run with nigh on 13v reading across as soon as I switched off it dropped back down to 8v. Now my car electrics are worse than my mechanics, but I reckon the alternator's fine, but the batteries knackered, unless something's taking a hell of a current somewhere that's draining the thing as fast as it could charge? :-/
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From the dealer with an abs card - it works out cheaper than halfords etc..
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I've used the Vauxhall GM blue branded one's in plenty of vehicles.
What vehicle is it for?
GM batteries on TC I think are very cheap compared to elsewhere.
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BE careful i had a 106 that could flatten a battery in twenty minutes,when i put a new battery on, then went for a run,disconnected the battery(because it was still draining)when reconnecting the fault made it self clear by catching fire,but on the up side showed me were the fault was.75p later and a pen top problem was fixed for good :y :y :y
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Try Europarts if they are nearby. They sell Bosch batteries and are usually competitive. :y
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Are you sure it's the battery?
13v is not high enough to keep the battery fully charged. This suggests that the alternator output is low, or the battery is flat and loading the alternator heavily as it takes up charge. .. and if it's taking charge it may well recover if charged up fully using a mains powered charger.
Might be worth following this procedure just to make sure...
http://www.omegaowners.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1225724099
Kevin
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Thanks Kevin - I'll take a read of that! The battery would almost certainly have been flat before taking the car on a run to hopefully put some power in from the alternator, so it may well have been drawing current. I only very quickly read it before swapping cars (had kids and missus waiting so time wasn't a luxury I had yesterday). I think it may have been over 13, - 13.??
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Just had another thought...
I've got a Halfords battery charger. It's fairly basic - a fuse to presumably save itself in the event of something nasty happening, two LED's, a mains plug and two crocodile clips. One LED indicates whether the unit is charging something, and the other indicates the charge (it's green LED that gradually gets brighter as it comes up to full). I've never seen it actually stop charging having left it for hours and hours.
One thing that bothers me is that there's a label saying that it's only capable of charging car batteries if the car is under 1800cc. Now where's the logic in that? Anyone with more know-how explain? I'm baffled... a battery is a battery to me. Something to do with internal resistance?
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One thing that bothers me is that there's a label saying that it's only capable of charging car batteries if the car is under 1800cc. Now where's the logic in that? Anyone with more know-how explain? I'm baffled... a battery is a battery to me. Something to do with internal resistance?
Owners of cars above 1800cc are obviously minted so Halfrauds try to sell them a more expensive charger. ;)
There's actually not much correlation between engine size and battery size in most cars. Bigger batteries will just take a little longer to charge on that one. It'll still do the job, though. :y
Kevin
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Thanks Kevin. Cheeky sods - well I've hooked it up to give it a long charge and then run through the tests. The battery doesn't look bad, pretty shiny in fact - but then it's in the boot under a carpet hidden away and not in the usual place under the bonnet, exposed to the elements and gathering crud'n'oil.
Fingers crossed, but I have my suspicions :)