URGENT: My battery just died

CCOVICH

Left on the interior light when I was cleaning my car on Weds. night and now the battery is dead. What can I do? Thinking of heading to Halfords and getting jump leads, but have never used them before. Any advice?

What happens when I get the battery charged-do I need to change it?

Can't used an A/C powered charger, cos the car is miles away from the gaff (in underground car park).

wailers_irl

i think you can hire power packs in a toll hire shop sam hire etc. or else get jump leads and a friend with a car. A power would be handiest just stick the clamps on red to red and black to black. (red = positive + & black = negative -)
Or ringi a taxi rank and ask them to send a car with jump leads.

Ernie Ball

This happened to me yesterday after leaving the car for a 2-week holiday and forgetting I had something plugged into the cigarette lighter.

I was able to get it started by rolling it with the shift in first and the clutch in and then releasing the clutch.

If you can get it started this way, the battery should recharge enough to start the car again after leaving the engine running for 15-30 minutes.

CCOVICH

Ernie Ball wrote:

This happened to me yesterday after leaving the car for a 2-week holiday and forgetting I had something plugged into the cigarette lighter.

I was able to get it started by rolling it with the shift in first and the clutch in and then releasing the clutch.

If you can get it started this way, the battery should recharge enough to start the car again after leaving the engine running for 15-30 minutes.

Cheers for that. When I went back to the car after turning the offending light off, the alarm and immobiliser lights had come back on, so I guess it might be ok to start again. Anyway, I have sourced a set of jump leads, so hopefully I will get it sorted.

Borzoi

CCOVICH wrote:

Anyway, I have sourced a set of jump leads, so hopefully I will get it sorted.

Check your manual to ensure jump leads are safe with your car - just to be on the safe side.

It's also about a minutes work to disconnect and remove a battery - say to bring it into your apartment to leave charge!

AMurphy

Got any friends with cars or even one car and a set of jumper cables. It does not have to be a big car or batt, just operational.

btw, I see no reason why any car cannot be jumpered off another car of the same voltage. (24VDC jumper packs is another story).

For a completely dead batt, connect the cars with the doner car left running on a fast idle and leave them for 10~15min so the dead batt will charge up a bit. Then start. Disconnect the jumpers and there you are.

For the future, put a set of jumpers in the boot. There are very few other drivers that will leave you stranded in a parking lot.

Had to do the same myself aweek ago or so. I have a set permanemtly in the boot. Not only did I get a jump start, but the doner also had a small 12VDC compressor, so I pumped one of the tyres also.

pauln

Just while on jump starting I thought I'd pass on an interesting point.

The negative connection to the car with the "dead" battery should be clamped onto a piece of unpainted metalwork/engine block e.g. the lifting lug, 18'' or more from the battery, not to the negative post on the "dead" battery.
The thinking is that this being the first clamp your supposed to disconnect when the car is running your breaking the circuit between both cars and there is going to be a spark created, there is a risk that this spark could ignite the hydrogen created by the charging battery and cause it to explode. Now I did it the other way for ages with no problems but since learning this I'm doing it this way, better safe then sorry.

Also, the alternater of car was never designed to recharge a completly "dead" battery, it puts it under a fair bit of strain. It's usually better to take it out and charge it over night off the mains if you can, but when you're stuck, you're stuck.

CCOVICH

Thanks for all the replies.

Got the jump leads, but in the meantime the alarm and CL had fired back up, and I wasn't able to open the car to flick the bonnet!!!

So had to trigger the alarm and run down the power again. Jump leads worked a treat, and I then took the car on a 30 minute drive. No problems (yet).

Oh well, could have been worse, I'm actually selling the car at the moment-just as well nobody was coming to see it today!(P.s. prospective buyers, no probs with the car, it was my own stupidity in leaving on the interior light that caused this!)

That's interesting about attaching the negative end to a piece of metal-I had seen this tip somewhere online earlier, but I had someone who had done this before show me, and they connected all ends of both leads to both batteries. I'll know for next time!

AMurphy

Yeah, forgot to mention alarms can react badly to this condition.

On our van the first response of attaching the jumper cables is the alarm goes off and having the 100db horn next to the battery is no benifit.

So maybe the first task should be, "Install your ear plugs"

stratos

Just to add, on the car providing the jump start, it should have it's heater fan on or headlights.
Most new cars have ecu's which don't like what are called voltage transients.
These are voltage spikes inducted into electrical system from the starter motor on the dead vehiclle.
Keeping the the battery loaded as you jump start will absorbe these spikes.
If possible it's best to push start modern cars if at all possible.

AMurphy

Hmmmmmm!, While i'll agree voltage spikes are not to be tolerated. most new Ignitions ECU are generally portected, as they HAVE to be against the reverse EMF voltage spikes from the very fast transistor Ignitions, which can raise 200~300 voltage spikes in the primary coil.

Same for the hooter and any other magnetic items.
Hence, you might find many of your relays now have "snubber" diodes and resistors imbedded. Hence, do not replace any "Bosch" like relay with a generic Bosch relay as they lack the snubber circuits.
And another reason for first charging the battery of the dead battery, rather than going straight to start.

the main problem (disaster) I see is reverse voltage burning out the diodes of the alternator. This would result if you connected the doner +ve to the dead -ve and vice versa.