Do I need a new battery?

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Soldato
Joined
6 Mar 2008
Posts
8,778
Location
Leicestershire
Hi,

Occassionally my dash says 'Low Battery' - it's probably around 4/5 years old and my car is an S-Max 2.0 Diesel Titanium X - sat nav etc.

The car starts fine, but if I have the ignition off and the stereo running it may then say 'Low Battery' after 5 minutes, sometimes it doesn't say anything though.

Should I replace it ?
 
Get it tested, many places will offer a free battery condition test. If still on original then 4/5 years isn't uncommon for it to be ready for replacement.
 
Just changed mine this weekend as only just made it through last winter and was ok through the summer once temperatures rose, nice simple DIY job.

In the past i have found that occasionally the battery will just very suddenly give up if you have been eeking it out so if you know its on the way best just to get it sorted before it catches you out. Autumn into Winter can be the final nail in the coffin as the temperatures drop.
 
My Mondeo used to do this. It was still on its original battery when I part exchanged it at 8 years old. Never had a problem starting it.
 
My Mondeo did this a couple of years ago. It still started okay, but I would get occasional warnings like you. Since these warnings are measured by battery voltage, it was obviously dropping lower than it should do, so I replaced it with a nice new 85ah jobby since prevention is better than cure and all that. It's been perfect since.
 
Our old S-Max did this occasionally but part of the reason was because it only ever did short jaunts around town and I think in warm weather my wife ended up in situations where she was having to wait for quite a while in the car and was sat with the stereo and blower on for a while. That same battery is now in my Mondeo (because that had also been throwing up low battery warnings due to the previous owner fitting a crap battery that wasn't the same spec as the original) and it's absolutely fine with the driving I do.

Chances are that the battery might well be due a replacement and that you should go and get it checked out, but has your usage changed, does it end up doing short trips and in situations where the stereo is on for longish periods?

Bit of a pain in the rear changing the battery on the S-Max though. The damn airbox lid (on the 2.0 diesel at least) had to be disconnected from the engine intake and lifted out just to get the battery cover off. If I remember rightly I might even have had to take the entire airbox out to get the battery in/out easily too. Annoying design.
 
Yep, mine did it a few times and recently I went to it and no crank at all even though it started strong every time. Modern batteries just fail unlike the older ones where you had plenty of notice of it giving up.
 
Thanks for the replies. I've got a new battery coming tomorrow. I think it's definitely on it's last legs, in the Summer on a holiday in Norfolk I was listening to the stereo with the ignition half turned and engine off and after 20 minutes it cut out completely, the car wouldn't start for about 20 minutes, so I think I've definitely eeked out as much of it as I can. Strange though as I've listened to the radio since for around as long with the engine off and every time the car has started up fine.

A recent trip to Wales though and when I got there the car started juddering a bit as I was driving along which I immediately thought was due to the battery.

But after that it's been fine, for the best part of three weeks, no warning light at all until the other day. I can definitely concur with the S-Max battery fitting, when I bought the car a few years ago about two weeks after the battery needed replacing which I did myself, took a while to with all the gubbins you have to get out of the way first.
 
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