Hey Folks

2003 - TD5

Need a bit of advice here , D2 battery fitted start of year run it roughly 20 - 30 miles once a week as it’s a weekend car .

Now if I don’t use it once a week the battery dies and needs jump started , now my longest road trip was 150 miles in 1 day a night ago and thought that would be enough for it to stay charged ? Had it out on Tuesday did approx 30 miles went to start it today and it’s trying to turn over but nope , now if i jump start it it will go no problem ? Any ideas what to look for ?

 

On a full charge battery, are you getting at least 13.25 volts at idle? If not your alternator is on its way out. A load test on a battery to check for a weak cell is step 1B.

There could be a parasitic draw while sitting but checking alternator output and battery health are the first things to check off. They also happen to be the easiest two to check.

As a battery dealer I have had a few new batteries go bad quickly, not often but it does happen.

 

If battery and charging system check out okay. Disconnect battery for a week or so and see if it goes dead. If it does. Check for parasitic draw at battery. Put amperage meter, on lowest setting/mA, between ground cable and frame.

 

Get a current clamp and measure drain current as well as charging current. This way you can measure from milliamps to 100s of amps and do not need to disconnect anything. A normal ammeter in that application could be fried easily. Keep the hood open, tamper the hood switch with a clamp, lock the the doors and let it sit for half an hour, battery drain should go down to a few tens of milliamps only. With engine running you can also measure the charging amps. Many modern current clamps are multimeters, so you can measure voltage and resistance/conductivity as well. It's a very useful tool for car repairs and I take it with me on trips.

 

My '02 D2 (120K miles) was having random, weird, electrical problems: [the problem and probable fix below]
Battery dead after 2 days,
AC blower motors not shutting off when ignition is off,
Alarm system not allowing me to start engine,
Window switches not working (would open, but NOT close),
Door locks would NOT auto unlock when ignition switch was turned off,
Random misfire codes,
Carpet WET on right side
... probably more
My troubleshooting included, but not limited to:
Engine Control Module clean and electrical tape semi protected from water,
Silicone sealed windshield and A-Pillar exterior,
Silicone sealed fresh air intake,
Replaced door gasket,
Silicone sealed all cracks of old putty, bad or loose weld openings, anything that might allow water inside, which also included pulling up the carpet and resealing all interior seams,
Cleaning out AC and Sunroof drain lines, repeatedly!!!
I THINK I finally solved my problems...
The exterior RAIN GUTTER curvy part, at the upper corner of the windshield is broke. I removed the exterior A-Pillar and kept pouring water. The ONLY place and time water entered inside was when the water flowed too fast for the windshield gutter channel. The water dripped or overflowed over the metal pillar (not the plastic exterior portion of the pillar) and down the door gasket.

My little curvy piece is broke, so I created a little silicone dam near that corner to help direct the water into the channel. When I tested with LOTS more water the day after building the dam, the overflow was very limited. I expect to pick up a replacement this week.

My point: those little pieces that look like they are just for looks, probably have a purpose.