Check battery age? Possible?

arleitiss

Hey, so I bought new battery for bmw yesterday in halfords.
After crawling in car for about 20 mins of searching battery (which ended up being in the boot, I thought all batteries are under bonnet) I looked at it and well....
The car is 2001 , the battery is from halfords too, but it doesn't look fresh new, I mean terminals are dirty and have some white probably acid-ish substance on it, the labels are dirty covered. It doesn't show any date when made/issued but has barcode,think I can find out when it was placed in car? If I bring it to halfords, think they could read barcode and see when it was sold?

Also I need to get back to halfords because I took like 100 amps less powerful than the old one, think it's alright? or should I get equal amp setting battery?

OldmanMondeo

Barcode won't tell. But most decent battery manufactures will have a date stamp on them. Most motor factors engrave the sell date on them.

Make sure you have the right battery for the car, maybe the one in it is 100amps to much for the car.

arleitiss

Well the reason I bought new battery is, because I noticed that car battery goes flat if I don't drive car for more than 30 hours. So I bought new battery and if it's other fault - wont hurt having a backup for now. Just wondering about amps. The previous owner had a subwoofer installed so that might be the reason.

ted1

Are sure it's 100 amps and not amp hours.

unkel

arleitiss wrote: »

which ended up being in the boot, I thought all batteries are under bonnet

BMW strives for perfect weight distribution (half of the weight on the back, half on the front). The front is naturally heavier (with the engine being there) so this means they have to move heavy things (like the battery) from the front to the back of the car

Voodoomelon

Batteries often have alphanumeric dates stamped on them.

See here to decode: http://www.allpar.com/fix/batteries.html

miller50841

If your battery isn't lasting there could be a problem with the alternator.

I would presume you asked Halfords what battery to get and hope they did give you the correct one.

arleitiss

miller50841 wrote: »

If your battery isn't lasting there could be a problem with the alternator.

I would presume you asked Halfords what battery to get and hope they did give you the correct one.

Yes I did ask them, they gave me battery code, so I got that one. When got home I checked old and new battery labels and only difference was amps

ironclaw

arleitiss wrote: »

Yes I did ask them, they gave me battery code, so I got that one. When got home I checked old and new battery labels and only difference was amps

You'll need to be careful there. A battery won't be measured in amps. That wouldn't make sense. Its normally Amp/Hours. Basically how many amps a battery can supply for an hour or part there of. e.g. A 100A/Hr battery will give 100 amps for 1 hour or 50 amps for 2 hours etc at the voltage specified. Any mention of Amps is probably the maximum current that the battery can supply and it will be for a very, very short period of time e.g. Initial turn over. Car batteries specialise in huge current for short periods of time.

It doesn't matter if its higher than the older battery, the car will only draw what it needs. It is a problem if its lower as an initial start pulls a massive amount of current (i.e. Amps) and could buckle the battery plates.

But as other people said, you battery shouldn't be going flat in 30 hours. A modern car should be able to lie up for weeks without going flat.

arleitiss

ironclaw wrote: »

You'll need to be careful there. A battery won't be measured in amps. That wouldn't make sense. Its normally Amp/Hours. Basically how many amps a battery can supply for an hour or part there of. e.g. A 100A/Hr battery will give 100 amps for 1 hour or 50 amps for 2 hours etc at the voltage specified. Any mention of Amps is probably the maximum current that the battery can supply and it will be for a very, very short period of time e.g. Initial turn over. Car batteries specialise in huge current for short periods of time.

It doesn't matter if its higher than the older battery, the car will only draw what it needs. It is a problem if its lower as an initial start pulls a massive amount of current (i.e. Amps) and could buckle the battery plates.

But as other people said, you battery shouldn't be going flat in 30 hours. A modern car should be able to lie up for weeks without going flat.

Yeah, I was suggested that I need to change this thing called final stage resistor, they tend to **** up (literally: **** up) electronics and make batteries flat. So I am gonna go to some garage tomorrow and see what they can suggest.
I am thinking of Advanced Pitstop, but maybe someone can suggest any other garage in dublin?
I bought oil and old oil needs draining but I can't do it myself as I don't have jacks to lift car.

miller50841

arleitiss wrote: »

Yeah, I was suggested that I need to change this thing called final stage resistor, they tend to **** up (literally: **** up) electronics and make batteries flat. So I am gonna go to some garage tomorrow and see what they can suggest.
I am thinking of Advanced Pitstop, but maybe someone can suggest any other garage in dublin?
I bought oil and old oil needs draining but I can't do it myself as I don't have jacks to lift car.

Drive onto a high kerb;)
Any independent garage or would like to think advance would be able to diagnose your discharge problems:pac:

ironclaw

arleitiss wrote: »

Yeah, I was suggested that I need to change this thing called final stage resistor, they tend to **** up (literally: **** up) electronics and make batteries flat. So I am gonna go to some garage tomorrow and see what they can suggest.
I am thinking of Advanced Pitstop, but maybe someone can suggest any other garage in dublin?
I bought oil and old oil needs draining but I can't do it myself as I don't have jacks to lift car.

Battery's go flat by being used i.e. Delivering current. The car's electronics don't draw all that much when switched off, in fact its negligible. If its going from fully charged to flat in 30 hours of lying up, theres a serious draw somewhere.

So that would mean to me its drawing when switched on. Of course your average alternator will far exceed the current required to run the car and charge the battery. My guess is you have a problem with your alternator.

Is this a new car you bought?

arleitiss

ironclaw wrote: »

Battery's go flat by being used i.e. Delivering current. The car's electronics don't draw all that much when switched off, in fact its negligible. If its going from fully charged to flat in 30 hours of lying up, theres a serious draw somewhere.

So that would mean to me its drawing when switched on. Of course your average alternator will far exceed the current required to run the car and charge the battery. My guess is you have a problem with your alternator.

Is this a new car you bought?

Yeah, it's 2001 though. I looked at car on the day, saw no problems, it drives smooth and perfect but you know - this type of problem is something that not even a mechanic would be able to spot as it would more likely require to wait 24 hours.

I noticed one thing:
When ignition is off and key is out, the cigarrete lighter keeps drawing power. I think electronics don't understand when I have have or don't have key in ignition.

Ofcourse I could buy the cable to get diagnostics and see error codes, but I really don't want to waste money on something that might not help and will require fix anyway.

Bpmull

arleitiss wrote: »

Yeah, it's 2001 though. I looked at car on the day, saw no problems, it drives smooth and perfect but you know - this type of problem is something that not even a mechanic would be able to spot as it would more likely require to wait 24 hours.

I noticed one thing:
When ignition is off and key is out, the cigarrete lighter keeps drawing power. I think electronics don't understand when I have have or don't have key in ignition.

Do you plug everything out of the cigarette lighter when the car is switched off this would stop the cigarette lighter using power.

arleitiss

Bpmull wrote: »

Do you plug everything out of the cigarette lighter when the car is switched off this would stop the cigarette lighter using power.

I did already, still though I feel there is something that stays turned on, in fact brb, gonna go and check if it's flat yet or not. Will check also batteries details if I can find date.

Bpmull

arleitiss wrote: »

I did already, still though I feel there is something that stays turned on, in fact brb, gonna go and check if it's flat yet or not. Will check also batteries details if I can find date.

I wonder is there a light somewhere staying on maybe in the boot or if there is one under the bonnet.

arleitiss

Back from parking.
Here are my findings:
Old battery date is 03/2009 (4 years warranty) so wont hurt replacing it anyway.
New batteries: 03/12

Also I noticed: it says Starting Power, not just power.

By the way, I had a look at alternator, it doesn't look too old like 10 years old, but here is what I noticed: It has a tipex writing saying: 01 BMW 316 so I assume it was replaced not so long ago from E46 316 though (which probably has same alternator since it works) and battery wasn't flat at all this time.

Found two + (red) covers, so covered both terminals in battery
Left: New
Right: Old


Changed contrast of date area for better view.

Left old one in for now:

arleitiss

So what garage/service would you suggest?

Armadillo

arleitiss wrote: »

So what garage/service would you suggest?

Where are you based and how far can you travel?

By the way, if you need to get rid of the old battery, let me know.

arleitiss

Armadillo wrote: »

Where are you based and how far can you travel?

By the way, if you need to get rid of the old battery, let me know.

I will most likely keep it in case some day my battery goes flat, I could use this one to jump start car

I am in city center in Dublin, can travel up to Finglas.

Armadillo

Ask Nissan Doctor if he could oblige - he has a good rep on boards.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/member.php?u=322982

gctest50

If the new battery doesn't sort it, the alternator might be dead on one phase or have a diode or two gone. ( see attached pic for rough idea)

This would give odd symptoms of being almost working.
Might account for the power draw when the car is parked up too.

Disconnect one cable from the battery (with the ignition off ) and put a multimeter set to Amps in between.

Turn off the interior light

If it's drawing a good bit of power, start pulling fuses one by one until you find it.

Failing that,
disconnect the battery/meter combo
disconnect the alternator
reconnect the battery/meter combo

check for power draw

Take off rings/watches etc before you go working around the battery/alternator etc