Gentle Ben
Vee-Man
Right, not strictly Renault, but anyway...
I've finally got my Vectra GSi on the road to recovery - the 2.5 original engine has been binned and replaced with an Omega 3.0 engine. When doing the rebuild we had to use the Omega alternator as the 2.5 one was seized.
When the car was struck up for the first time (on a 2.5 V6 battery) it was taken for a gentle run of around 5 miles to check everything was running OK. At that it was parked up for the night. Following day I came to take it out for another short run but found the battery completely dead - it didn't even have enough oomph to unlock the car off the key.
So I took the battery off (only around 18mth old) and stuck it on the trickle charger for an hour, after which it was recording 12.05v. I have since done some research and found that 12.05v is technically classed as discharged.
However I did notice that once the trickle charge was removed, it lost it's voltage at the rate of 0.01v per second, i.e. after 30 secs the voltage across the terminals was around 11.7v.
At that rate, to my mind at least, that would mean the battery would be completely flat in the morning if left overnight. So I took the battery back to the factors and got my money back, having already taken the plunge buying an top-spec Exide battery specced for an Omega 3.0.
This new battery was fitted a week last Tuesday, and started the car absolutely fine with no worries, and continued to do so night after night until yesterday morning when I came to move the car and found it completely dead.
Multimeter showed a little over 2v on the battery. I've bought this battery inside and have had it on the trickle charger for most of yesterday evening and all of today.
With the charger connected to the battery and charging, the terminals show a reading of 12.1v. When the leads are removed the battery shows the same 12.1v which alarmingly now loses it's voltage at the same rate as the old battery - bearing in mind there is actually nothing connected to the battery either so the rate is internal discharge.
Question is, is this normal behaviour for a battery?
And if not, what could cause the battery to behave this way?
Being an electrician by trade makes this question particularly embarrassing but I am at the end of my tether with this car now. It failed it's MOT gloriously, has fluid leaking from somewhere or other and still needs tax and insurance.
Was hoping to send it for it's MOT re-test soon but until I sort my electrical issues out the car is going nowhere!
I've finally got my Vectra GSi on the road to recovery - the 2.5 original engine has been binned and replaced with an Omega 3.0 engine. When doing the rebuild we had to use the Omega alternator as the 2.5 one was seized.
When the car was struck up for the first time (on a 2.5 V6 battery) it was taken for a gentle run of around 5 miles to check everything was running OK. At that it was parked up for the night. Following day I came to take it out for another short run but found the battery completely dead - it didn't even have enough oomph to unlock the car off the key.
So I took the battery off (only around 18mth old) and stuck it on the trickle charger for an hour, after which it was recording 12.05v. I have since done some research and found that 12.05v is technically classed as discharged.
However I did notice that once the trickle charge was removed, it lost it's voltage at the rate of 0.01v per second, i.e. after 30 secs the voltage across the terminals was around 11.7v.
At that rate, to my mind at least, that would mean the battery would be completely flat in the morning if left overnight. So I took the battery back to the factors and got my money back, having already taken the plunge buying an top-spec Exide battery specced for an Omega 3.0.
This new battery was fitted a week last Tuesday, and started the car absolutely fine with no worries, and continued to do so night after night until yesterday morning when I came to move the car and found it completely dead.
Multimeter showed a little over 2v on the battery. I've bought this battery inside and have had it on the trickle charger for most of yesterday evening and all of today.
With the charger connected to the battery and charging, the terminals show a reading of 12.1v. When the leads are removed the battery shows the same 12.1v which alarmingly now loses it's voltage at the same rate as the old battery - bearing in mind there is actually nothing connected to the battery either so the rate is internal discharge.
Question is, is this normal behaviour for a battery?
And if not, what could cause the battery to behave this way?
Being an electrician by trade makes this question particularly embarrassing but I am at the end of my tether with this car now. It failed it's MOT gloriously, has fluid leaking from somewhere or other and still needs tax and insurance.
Was hoping to send it for it's MOT re-test soon but until I sort my electrical issues out the car is going nowhere!
