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Title: Battery Draining Post by oz-World on Jan 10th, 2011, 9:12pm Been having problems at night, when I switch the heater on. I stopped at a garage to fill up, and the car would not start up, nor the engine turn, had to get a jump start. Can someone give me a clue as to why this is happening, runs fine during the day, I have fitted a new battery and alternator. |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Cosray on Jan 11th, 2011, 7:34am Hi oz ... what model engine etc.? ... what battery? ... what circumstances? ... battery light fainltly glowing, invisibly behind steeringwheel spokes? Look here for more info, tests... http://www.fordscorpio.co.uk/battery.htm Curious, Ray |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by oz-World on Jan 11th, 2011, 9:33am Scorpio 95 N Reg 2.5TDi The basic problem is at night when the electrics are boosted i.e can't have the lights on with the heater and visa versa. Heavy duty battery, and been discharge tested. |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Highlander on Jan 11th, 2011, 10:07am Oh I had this with a diesel! Does it have climate control? Do an instrument reset and cycle through to the displayed values until you reach : bAtt (Ignition voltage) http://www.fordscorpio.co.uk/instreset.htm It should display around 13.2 volts at idle, even with a full electrical load, lights/heated screen etc mine was only displaying between 11 and 12.2 unless i revved it hard, therefore wasnt charging the battery BUT.... it was only doing this when the heater fan was turned on (even if set to auto and not running) if i turned the heater fan off manually all was well and the ignition voltage returned to 13.2 A new CC panel sorted mine |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by oz-World on Jan 11th, 2011, 11:56am Cheers will give it a go. |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by oz-World on Jan 11th, 2011, 12:09pm okay at test idle 14.5 heater on 12.1 + lights on 11.2 |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Highlander on Jan 11th, 2011, 12:14pm 14.5 seems high. If you turn the heater fan off and run all the lights etc what does it read? |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by oz-World on Jan 11th, 2011, 12:18pm 14.3 when Idle. Does have a new heavy duty battery and alternator |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by oz-World on Jan 11th, 2011, 12:21pm Light on and no heater was 12.0 |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Cosray on Jan 11th, 2011, 12:27pm ... way too low. Check all powercables for oxydation, rust, rattle, loose. Turn all nuts and bolts! Does your batteryindicatorlight on the dash invisible behind the wheel faintly glow in the dark? That would be one diode gone from the pack. Also groundcables, notorious... Does your radio make a wheezing sound that rises with revs? If so it would point to serious increased internal resistance in the charging circuit's wiring whereby more current flows from the battery than IN. Read here http://www.fordscorpio.co.uk/electsystemtest.htm HTH Ray |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by oz-World on Jan 11th, 2011, 12:37pm CHEERS will go do some checks, and will let you know |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by oz-World on Jan 11th, 2011, 3:26pm Hi, Right I have checked all the cables and they are fine. re-did the reset. heater off and lights on 13.3 heater on and lights off 12.5 heater and lights on 11.5 also tested the alternator, disconnected when engine running this was fine, till turned heater on then the engine stopped. Battery fine too. no probs with batterylight indicator. Radio fine too any ideas! Martyn |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Highlander on Jan 11th, 2011, 3:41pm Change your CC panel :) p.s. diconnecting the alternator with the engine running can damage it :-/ |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Cosray on Jan 11th, 2011, 3:55pm ... just verifying... by [heater] do you mean the fanmotor of airco/heating system? Do you have a SATC "automatic climate control" airco/heater with the two temp "eyes" displays? OR do you mean the heated windows front & back? Just making sure - Ray |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by oz-World on Jan 11th, 2011, 4:10pm SATC - will look to get a new CC Panel Tom, will let you guys know. Cheers for your help Martyn |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Cosray on Jan 11th, 2011, 5:34pm Martyn... be aware it is really three units: the easily detachable userpanel and the controlbox behind it, rather awkward to come by AND a vulnerable HBC - heatre blower control unit IN the fanbox. The latter comes in a short and (improved) long coolingfin version. The short one is often defect and can be replaced turning two screws. Why suspect any of them? The fanmotor is pulse-width driven from the hard-to-come-by controlbox. Does it correctly and in a linear way respond to the turning of the speedsetting control - when NOT in AUTO? Apart from your battery drain Does the unit behave functionally OK? Do the "eyes" flash numbers like "03" or "07"? Does the unit respond to TEMP settings? Left and Right? E.g. at cold start, when you turn the vent settings to "Defrost" does it immediately start, rather than wait for a hot engine? If at night, with usual drivinglights on, you turn the fanspeedsetting to FULL do your lights visibly dim? Curious Ray |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Highlander on Jan 11th, 2011, 6:15pm on 01/11/11 at 17:34:14, Cosray wrote:
That was what mine did Ray, turning the dial made the fan/cc unit turn on and off, like a loose connection somewhere, it worked ok on auto |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Cosray on Jan 11th, 2011, 6:46pm Highlkander - that particular effect is caused by corroded potentiometers. In fact in the userpanel there is one for each dial. Proof of that observation is the AUTO function working well. The manual speedsettings will increase the dutycycle for the motor; the second for the flaps and doors operates exactly as your auto-gear-lever: providing a variable resistance value to be interpreted by and corresponding with by the controlbox for the respective doorpositions. (A ridiculously complex and vulnerable design to save 4 wires in a 10" flatcable. Siemens way back in 1993 or so must have laughed their head off) Detach the panel, spray the slidercontacts and they will function like new. While at it replace all bulbs! Apparently our friend experiences a high current consumption from the fanmotor which really can only be attributed to a bad fanmotor and/or HBC. So important is to establish whether lights go dim when the fanmotor is running slow or fast. That will provide a clue to the high current consumption, bleeding the battery. Also: does the fanmotor not jam or partly blocked? Both infamous sludged drainholes opened to allow water to leave the box? Another measurement in order to eliminate all other causes MUST be the AMPS going into the battery and into the system. There should alwyas be a surplus of at least 10%. Even new batteries, even when the applied voltage nears 14V, may have a excessive high internal resistance refusing sufficient chargecurrent. It is either too high a current from a user or insufficient current into the battery. HTH Ray |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by oz-World on Jan 11th, 2011, 7:53pm Does it correctly and in a linear way respond to the turning of the speedsetting control - when NOT in AUTO? YES! Apart from your battery drain Does the unit behave functionally OK? YES! Do the "eyes" flash numbers like "03" or "07"? NO Does the unit respond to TEMP settings? Left and Right? YES! If at night, with usual drivinglights on, you turn the fanspeedsetting to FULL do your lights visibly dim? WHEN ON FULL THE VISIBLY LIGHTS DIM, WHEN THE HEATER IS ON FULL |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Cosray on Jan 11th, 2011, 8:08pm ... well oz... only thing I can think of is either jamming or drainwater or bad lubrication of the fanmotor causing excessive current... when functioning does it really blow hard or just sighs? OR an excessively high internal resistance of battery and/or leads towards it (red cables, nuts, bolts, clamps) or from it (black cables and grounding, nuts, washers, bolts) Reminds me I had a rusty old Peugeot once with a similar problem. Turned out two parts of the chassisparts had torn and separated, causing a high groundresistance between battery and alternator! Either way the balance between chargecurrent going into the battery and current going down the system is diturbed. Now I am an electronics engineer and would always measure currents first to either point to or eliminate causes and circuits. If you do not have an appropriate meter you might say borrow one or have a garage do these three tests in rder to be certain. Can that be done? HTH Ray |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by oz-World on Jan 11th, 2011, 9:24pm I have a voltmeter, I will have another crack at it tommorrow morning. what do you mean by "Turned out two parts of the chassisparts had torn and separated, causing a high groundresistance between battery and alternator!" only ask as the car was in a crash last year and caused front damage. I hit the barrier and it ripped the front, but have fixed, had to do some welding too. And replace part at front i.e radiator, hydrolics for the steering etc. (Maybe the damage is more than I thought) Cheers |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Tompion on Jan 12th, 2011, 2:38am Connect a jump lead between the battery earth and a good earthing point as near to the alternator as it will reach or bolt on any decent bit of sizeable wire from the battery earth to an alternator mounting bolt just to rule out a faulty earth. |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Cosray on Jan 12th, 2011, 9:41am Martyn - on a new car the chassis-parts form one nice welded low-resistance ground circuit. The manufacturer can save a lot of thick-cable-cost by grounding various heavy current users just by connecting them anywhere on the chassis, assuming the return is zero Ohms. When rusting at the seams OR after a crash those parts become partly separated. I am sure you have seen cars where flashing indicators will dim the brakinglights in the same rhythm. Thats'a typical groundingproblem caused by rust, bad contacts, chassisparts not connecting well. Now if this happens between your alternator, being ground on the engine and your batt being ground to your chassis it will hamper the chargingcurrent... Please follow Tompion's excellent suggestion to eliminate this possibility! Ray |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by oz-World on Jan 12th, 2011, 11:56am Done the ground test no difference Going to take to a garage. See if they can find the problem, cheers for all your help. |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Tompion on Jan 12th, 2011, 1:01pm Given Highlanders suggestion of a faulty control panel, have you tried a different load without the blower? For example lights, heated seats. heated screen, brake lights & cigar lighters. |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by oz-World on Jan 12th, 2011, 2:59pm I did, the reading were 12.5 - 12.7. its only when the heater is turned on that it drops to 11. + as you will know it is was too cold to drive at night without the heater on. |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Cosray on Jan 12th, 2011, 3:12pm oz - please clarify... with [heater] -- do you mean the Blower/fanmotor of your heating/airco sysytem..? Just to make sure we are talking same language here... Ray |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by oz-World on Jan 12th, 2011, 9:26pm i'm sorry that was my fault, it happens when I turn on the blower. |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Mike H on Jan 14th, 2011, 1:32pm Talking of alternator earths, should there be a big cable joining engine crankcase to chassis? |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Cosray on Jan 14th, 2011, 1:42pm on 01/14/11 at 13:32:54, Mike H wrote:
Definitely yes. It is a must in order to avoid all kinds of stray currents and radio interference. It assumes that the Batt NEG is connected to chassis as well. Ideally it should run from engineblock and/or alternator directly to batt NEG but sometime runs through various chassis parts that because of seams and rust can cause gremlins to happen after 10 years ;-(( Ray |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Mike H on Jan 14th, 2011, 3:51pm That's what I was thinking. ;) |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by oz-World on Jan 14th, 2011, 7:24pm Okay took it to my local garage, what a *** won't sware, he told me I have an electric drain on the car, well. duh! He is obviously an idiot, he could not find it, and tried to charge me £80 for nothing. Have lost a lot of faith in the car. Going to put some new earth links at the front from the engine to the chasis on bothsides and do some mods. Replaced the cc panel and no joy either! I wan't to say cheers for all your help guys, going to start from the beginning, and fine comb the car, it's all I can do as can't drive at night with no heat. |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Cosray on Jan 14th, 2011, 9:43pm on 01/14/11 at 19:24:33, oz-World wrote:
Do not despair. I am certain we all by now now have experienced worse problems than this one blower glitch. Let me recap. When does this drain happen? 1) when you leave your SATC on AUTO? 1a) Does that function OK? 1b) Does the fan blow fast and/or nicely decrease in speed over time when heating and reaching equilibrium? 1c) what TEMP setting? Both sides equal? 2) do you then have AC ON as well? Does it function i.e. do you have a cold and a hot pipe to the front? 2a) Is the drain behaviour similar when AC is OFF? 3) or do you have the fanspeed on MANUAL say halffway? If so why? 4) Does your SATC show blinkig numbers in the TEMP windows? Curious Ray |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by oz-World on Jan 17th, 2011, 11:24am 1) when you leave your SATC on AUTO? 1a) Does that function OK? DOES NOTHING!!!!! 1b) Does the fan blow fast and/or nicely decrease in speed over time when heating and reaching equilibrium? CONSTANT FAST BLOW!!!!! 1c) what TEMP setting? Both sides equal? 23 - BOTH SIDES!!!!! 2) do you then have AC ON as well? Does it function i.e. do you have a cold and a hot pipe to the front? DON'T HAVE A/C ON - NEEDS REFILL 2a) Is the drain behaviour similar when AC is OFF? 3) do you have the fanspeed on MANUAL say halffway? If so why? YES TO DE-MIST THE WINDOWS 4) Does your SATC show blinkig numbers in the TEMP windows? 00 DONE THE EARTHS STILL NO JOY!!!! NOW THE PASSENGER SIDE FRONT SPRING HAS SNAPPED, WENT ON THE WAY THE BLACKPOOL WITH A RIGHT PING. HAD ENOUGH. THE CAR IS COSTING ME MORE THAN I'M EARNING. I can replace the front unit, but need a break, it's been a headache, good job I have another vehicle. Martyn |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Cosray on Jan 17th, 2011, 12:24pm ahhhhrrgghhh... know how you feel... Blower Adding all symptoms and trials together I would say sounds like there's 2 problems causing the drain. - The SATC need resetting, so your temp windows will display temp properly and all electronic and flapssettings will be restored; see here http://www.fordscorpio.co.uk/ccreset.htm - You need a nwe HBC unit - with the long coolingfin this time; a few pounds at the breaker's Front spring first time ever I hear about that happening... heavy bump? HTH Ray |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Mike H on Jan 17th, 2011, 12:53pm Sleeping policemen! I know someone with a Ford estate something or other, has busted 2 springs so far on all the blasted speed humps where he lives |
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Title: Re: Battery Draining Post by Chieftain on Jan 17th, 2011, 4:32pm Both mine went last year :( |
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