Went out today to take the car for a rip and had a completely dead *** battery. No warning and was fine the other day? I do run it with a CTEK charger. In any event, I am looking at replacing the battery as it most likely needs to be done. Is there anything that will need to be reset or recalibrated after I have disconnected the battery? Any advice would be very much appreciated.

 

Hi, I wont be much help with this save that I had to get my battery replaced earlier this week. Each morning it is showing a low battery warning but starts fine, the service guys reckon to give it a while and not worry about it as yet as all the bits need to introduce themselves to other bits (my description, not theirs), but it is 4 days now.

 

A lot of batteries are delivered with less than a full charge. It's always a good idea to fully charge any new battery when you get one - just driving won't, IMO, fullly charge a battery unless you drive for a very long time. I've read that it takes a 20 minute drive to replace the electrons lost when starting the car (though I'm prepared to be corrected by someone who knows definitively!).

 

When you replace the battery, you may or may not need to reset the auto window up feature - directions are in your owners handbook and in many threads here, quite simple.

 

does this appear to be an original battery? I hooked up a jumper//charge box and the electronics such as dash lights, etc. came on, but when I tried to start the car, I got nothing just the clicking noise.

I assume it’s a dead battery or how do I possibly a starter issue?

 

That’s an Interstate battery, which I can’t imagine is original. Mine had the Varta battery that Jag specified, which I’ve since replaced.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/8z43w...dbgkkf09j&dl=0

 

I recently replaced a Varta battery in mine too.

 

Wood two batteries in eight years be unheard of?

 

My original battery lasted at least eight years (bought the car used) and was still working fine but I replaced it because I didn't want to get stranded if it decided to die. BTW I always kept the battery on a CTEC when the car was not in use for more than two weeks.

 

Gee…the battery in my 1966 Mk2 is now 20 years old and working just fine…intermittently on a CTEK unit. The clock doesn’t draw much current!
😀

Two modern batteries in 8 years is perfectly normal if they are not always on a battery maintainer.

 

20 years. Now that is impressive.

 

I run a CTEC all the time
However, I’m beginning to question whether or not it’s running properly?
I have a back up new one I may use
But I did just run the car a day or two ago so if the battery was decent, I wouldn’t have expected it to just quit on me?

 

 

The failure mode of modern batteries is exactly that: no warning. They simply give up the ghost. In the old days you could notice the battery performance weakening over a period of time…not any more.

 

After I put my new battery in the car recently the charging behavior was very weird. So I bought one of these:


to monitor the battery and charging voltage. It works great.

BTW the weird charging was the BMS learning the new battery. Apparently it lets the battery discharge lower than normal a few times and then allows normal charging.

 

The screens you posted are typical false positive errors when you have a battery issue. Put the new battery on the CTEK for a day, as suggested above.

The only thing you'll have to do is reset the full up/down function of the windows, as mentioned.

Reset as follows:
1. Close the window fully.
2. Release the switch, then lift it to the close position and hold for 2 seconds.
3. Open the window fully.
4. Release the switch, then push it to the open position and hold for 2 seconds.
5. Lift and release the switch to operate the one-touch function.
6. Repeat the procedure on each window.

If you're curious, you can pull the date code off of the old Interstate battery to see it's age. (Of course, it could have been on the shelf for a year before it was installed.)

 

Can anybody tell me the correct “ground”
point when using cables?

 

I used the one with the black/green wire - seemed the most convenient. I held the existing tag down so it didn't lose contact while I fitted the CTEK negative lead on top of it.

 

When you get the low battery warning, my first question is did someone plug something into the ODBII port recently? I've been bit by the dreaded ODBII drain two times, both caused by the dealer, when they did not correctly exit their ODBII Session. The first time, the battery was dead in 4 days. The second time, I got ahead of it and reset by disconnecting and then reconnecting the negative lead.

 

No low battery warning at all
drove it a few days ago
yesterday was just dead