Completely dead car battery - not chargeable

Igotadose

Car is 2011 Auris 1.33. Left for 2 month holiday in the backyard, neighbour would run the car once/month for about 1/2 hour. No problems. Neighbour tried to start the car 3 days ago, nothing, no lights, no crank. He took the battery out and tried to charge it on his charger, would not charge. I did the same with the battery in place and it just showed 'Err' on its console which per the manual indicated less than 3V power (12V battery I think).

Any ideas why in the last month the car was idle, the battery completely drained? It was turned off, no lights, no nothing during that period. Simply bad timing? I didn't think a battery could go so stone-cold dead. Battery is from 2017 or so, car gets regular short-distance driving, maybe not daily but 4-5x/week.

I'm planning on calling the AA to come out and diagnose, but I think it needs a new battery. I'm just worried it might be something bigger like the alternator? Still concerned the battery drained out with the car switched off.

Atlantic Dawn

The actual energy required by your neighbour to start it once a month was likely not being replenished by the idle run it was getting so each time he did this it was having a negative impact on the overall charge left on the battery. Does the car have an alarm, that will additionally drain the battery.

sundodger5

A car battery in a shop waiting to be sold will slowly lose charge. Even parked your car will be drawing some power.

If the battery is at 3v it is not going to recover.

New battery is your starting point. Once fitted then check the alternator.

User1998

Its a 6 year old battery and the car wasn’t being driven enough. Sometimes they just completely die. Just buy a new one.

endacl

Isn’t it funny how we think about car batteries? If it was a camera, or a remote, or any gadget, we’d just replace. Stick it in a car though, and there’s any amount of wondering what’s going on with the electricity storage device without a store of electricity…

😂

Escapees

I'd bet that a door wasn't closed properly after the car was being started in your absence and a courtesy light therefore inadvertently left on. The door would likely have been closed properly on the next occasion and effectively no evidence left of what happened. A car battery can just go bad, but to run totally down usually suggests something was left on and drained it. I think this is recoverable from if it is charged soon after the event, but probably not if left for a week or two etc. in that state with the load still present.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121062994#Comment_121062994

Thanks again for this! So true. Anyway, off to the shop tomorrow for a new battery.

greasepalm

If calling AA they will have/get a battery and diagnose charging system also.