Weird charging behaviour (12V ICE)

Mekrel

Mekrel

Mekrel

Soldato
Joined
2 Aug 2004
Posts
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Location
Buckinghamshire
My car has been cycling through loads of error warnings on the dash, but has remained drivable.

This happened again after starting the car at work, drove back home (15 min/6 mile drive), turned the car off and back on a few minutes later - no warning signs.

A few hours later, I used a multimeter on the battery which showed a low state of charge (12.16v) - obviously very low.

I've connected my Noco charger in 12V mode (it's an EFB battery) and the lowest bar was flashing red, showing it was below 25%. However, the Noco is now saying the battery is charged after all of 15 mins of charging which can't be correct? Certainly not going but the charging table for a 95aH battery. The charger was connected to the terminals under the bonnet, the battery is in the boot - I did it this way as I know it's recommended to charge away from the battery if possible and I'm confident this method doesn't bypass the IBS.

Any issues here you can think of? Car is 4 years old (Alfa Romeo Giulia and yes, I know, it's an Alfa).

Might try connecting directly through the battery and to the IBS coming off the negative terminal.
 
Hmm, might have been a bad connection to the terminals under the bonnet.

Went directly onto the battery and the IBS, checked with the multimeter and it's gone up to over 14v so it seems like the battery is accepting a charge.

These things have finicky electronics, but I'll see what it gets up to before I go to bed. Might be time for a replacement AGM battery. Like you say, Simon, could be a bad battery
 
I had similar with gearbox issues etc. cold may have killed a cell and then you just fighting a duff battery.

Positive to battery and neg to chassis is the best way so sounds like you doing that
 
Start stop can kill batteries, my car is now 9 years old and I recently put the second new battery on it, both did around 4.5 years. First was Varta, second Bosch, Nissan well known for killing batteries.
Wife's focus did 11 years on the original but had a no start in the summer so that got a battery too.
 
I'm up to 12.5v which is .c 75 to 80%, but again, the Noco was showing a pulsating green.

To be honest the status LEDs aren't the best, depending on how fast the green LED blinks can either mean bulk charging is done and it's optimising (I assume that means trickle charging) or it's 100% charged and it's just on maintainance mode.

Either way, it was far too quick considering it should take 6 hours for a 80Ah battery at 50% DOD. Something isn't right, I'm not sure if it's the battery, charger or IBS.

I'll test the charger on the better half's car I guess!

Fingers crossed I can get to the dealer tomorrow (it's booked in for an oil leak anyway).
 
Last edited:
decto said:
Start stop can kill batteries, my car is now 9 years old and I recently put the second new battery on it, both did around 4.5 years. First was Varta, second Bosch, Nissan well known for killing batteries.
Wife's focus did 11 years on the original but had a no start in the summer so that got a battery too.
Click to expand...

Charging profile is bugged on many mid 2010s Nissans - Qashqai, Juke, Note, etc. and unless you drive for something like 40 minutes at an average 50 MPH it won't charge the battery properly and kills them quickly with SS, alternatively on some models if you open the bonnet and then start the engine and disable SS it will charge properly until the next time the engine stops due to using a different mode for inspection reasons.

I usually use Varta or Bosch (basically same battery) but apparently Exide batteries have better compatibility and last longer with Nissans for some reason, I guess some charge acceptance thing.
 
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