Dodgy Battery? ..Faulty Starter?... Something else??

Hi Guys,

Here's a problem I've been having for a couple of months now with my 2012 SD4, What do we think is wrong with it??

Every so often my car won't start... almost seems a bit random tbh.
I can leave it at the airport for a week or so and when i return it will fire straight up no probs, The other week i drove 400m up to scotland and after being parked up for a couple of hours it wouldn't start.

Computer/Dashboard said 'Low Battery'. So being the ever prepared girl i am, i got my heavy duty jump leads out and borrowed some electrical juice from another motorist. I drove to a garage and got my battery checked.

They said, Battery looks good, Alternator is putting out a fair bit of charge compared to normal but thats standard if the battery was completely dead 10mins ago. They drop tested the battery and declared it not a problem.

2weeks later and i park up after another long 120m drive at some services, I switch off for 3minutes, Go to restart the car. I get the usual startup dials moving and a whir of the pumps and then nothing but a big clicking sound from under the bonnet and the battery is instantly dead.

I've had the battery tested a couple of times since by some reputable battery people and they say its a good battery.
Yesterday it went from a solid 12.2v down to completely discharged after 1 attempt cranking the starter.

Sooooooo..... gonna take it in to the garage tomorrow.

What do You guys think is likely to be the culprit here?

Something on the starter circuit right? maybe the starter motor? possibly the solenoid? I dunno, I'm just teaching myself about car engine stuff via google but i think I'm on the right lines....right??

Thanks Samantha x

Early models suffered a lot with battery/alternator problems. I had loads of trouble, even left for a week at the dealers who said the typical ' nothing wrong/computer say no' despite it going every few days.

Even after a new battery (and maybe a s/w upgrade) I still don't trust it and trickle charge the battery every few weeks.

Have a quick read of the thread below, there are a few others too.

http://babyrr.com/forum/Thread-Dead-batt...5#pid70235

From what you say, Jumping the car allowed it to start so the Battery really was dead after a long journey. That can only really mean Battery or charging system. And if the Battery has worked after this point then probably the charging system.

At 5 Years old the Battery is possibly getting weak, and flattening it is not great for it either.

The trouble with the charging system is it's not just a straight forward alternator, but has "intelligence" with a Battery monitoring System, and a weak Battery may confuse the charging system , hopefully someone with the right knowledge can sort it for you but please let us know what they find as I'm heading into Winter number 6 too!

I don't think i explained well enough on the most recent failure. Let me give more details...

Ive been away with work for the last 2weeks so i left the car on a battery optimiser and the battery was well topped up with charge and ready to go. When it failed to start normally i used another car to successfully jump start mine and drove it 10miles to a battery shop.

They told me to switch off and tested the battery. (bare in mind this is the 3rd company to put a computer on the battery and declare it not only ok condition, but in fact in 'tip top condition' with over 12.5v.
We all shrugged our shoulders and i resigned myself to taking it to a garage. I then went to start the car and the starter did its clicking thing but no cranking or start.
The battery guy immediately tested the battery and was like 'wow there's now only 10v in this battery'.

He suggested i don't spend £110 on a new battery with him, despite me taking up more than 20mins of his time. He told me that a new battery would not solve the issue.
He then bought out a huuuge van battery (twice the size of my RangeRover one) and we went to jump the car from it and it practically killed this donor battery too. He metered that battery and was down to just under 11v after i started my car with it.

I wish it was something as simple as the battery just needing to be changed but I don't think its that simple

(31-10-2016 09:56pm)PhilSkill Wrote:  From what you say, Jumping the car allowed it to start so the Battery really was dead after a long journey. That can only really mean Battery or charging system. And if the Battery has worked after this point then probably the charging system.

At 5 Years old the Battery is possibly getting weak, and flattening it is not great for it either.

The trouble with the charging system is it's not just a straight forward alternator, but has "intelligence" with a Battery monitoring System, and a weak Battery may confuse the charging system , hopefully someone with the right knowledge can sort it for you but please let us know what they find as I'm heading into Winter number 6 too!

Wow to kill a battery (or 2) like that makes me question where did all the energy go?! you'd pretty much need to short it out to kill it so fast and that would usually result in a lot of heat (or worse) somewhere!

The only place the wires can dump that much energy is into the Starter Motor, all other wires would burn out in an instance. Maybe you have a dodgy Starter Motor.

It's certainly an unusual one! let us know!

2013 Pure TD4
I have had the same problem 3 times in a year (bought second hand)
The problem resolves itself after a good charge but seems random; last occurrence I charged overnight and it still would not start - then the day after it started perfectly and has been ok the past couple of weeks....

I took this to the local dealer mid September, they changed the battery but after less than a month the dreading "clicking" started again... Eventually the car always starts - I keep holding the starter button and
after some 10-20 seconds it cranks.

I am suspecting a high current situation in the starter, maybe when it is at a particular point in rotation.

So far the best luck I have had in diagnosing is opening the bonnet, glaring angrily at the starter and this seems to work....

I have found this a common problem on three different Renault Megan Scenics that I maintained - one of them belonging to my mother! I had changed the starter, battery and alternator on hers and still it would randomly go dead. She eventually sold hers but the other two resorted to carrying a jump pack.

I had a similar problem with a 2.2 petrol zafira (please don't shout at me)

the battery would go completely dead within a few hours, even after a long drive. The alternator and battery were both duly tested by a battery specialist, and by a garage. Everything was fine and they didn't know what the problem was. I resorted to driving everywhere with a heavy duty jump pack in the boot.

The battery was changed for a heavier duty one, but the problem persisted. So I bit the bullet and paid over £400 for a new alternator that only Vauxhall could supply..... problem solved permanently !!

Whether the issue was the incorrect battery, a tired battery, or a faulty alternator I have no idea, but it was definitely one of those 3.

hope you solve it

Rog

That's interesting RogB, as I notice the Alternator has a LIN bus to it, so it must have sensor info being fed back to the ECM, which is used in conjunction with the Battery Monitoring Information.

If the Alternator is doing this it could have a faulty sensor internally.

As already pointed out the whole system is monitored by them ECU, if you have a flat battery once and you recharge or replace it then you need to head down to your local dealer and get them to reset them system. The reason is that although you recharge the battery the system remembers so that needs to be cleared. If you do not do this then the car will always think that the battery is half or less full.