Car Enthusiast Club [Now Motorcycle friendly!] - First thread to 150k! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[bcredeur97]

On 1/10/2024 at 1:14 PM, Bitter said:

We had a DOA AGM in that Audi Q5 I did a starter on. It had a bad cell dropping to like 8.5 volts cranking but still started the car. Pretty impressive battery but it better be for how big it is and how much it cost.

the battery in my touareg is like 15 inches long. I think it's the biggest size you can get lol

Thing is insanely heavy haha (and it's under the driver's seat so that's fun)

[bcredeur97]

On 1/10/2024 at 3:13 PM, atxcyclist said:

Here in Texas with my car parked out in the sun, if I get 3 years out of a battery I consider myself lucky. Also, most batteries are made with reclaimed components so my expectations are low, and I always buy the cheapest option because of those two reasons; I have gotten longer life out of more expensive batteries, but they were so much more expensive that the $ per month of service was way more.

it used to be you could get batteries and they would last about 7 years. Those days are long over though lol

[Bitter]

6 minutes ago, bcredeur97 said:

the battery in my touareg is like 15 inches long. I think it's the biggest size you can get lol

Thing is insanely heavy haha (and it's under the driver's seat so that's fun)

Hernia size.

[Vonrottes]

The battery in my G8 was from like 2014, dash reported it was always at about 87% charge. was just a Autocraft AGM believe it was a platinum series? it was also a massive battery, 94R size. But the G8 had a pretty "smart" charging system that would monitor battery state and power demand, dropping down to 12.5v when the battery was "charged" and power demand was low, is battery was low it would crank the charge voltage all the way up to 15.4v... in 2022 when the car got totaled the battery was still strong.

And the battery in my Sonoma is about 6 years old. Costco/interstate and it sat discharged from 2019-2021 plus it's not in a "optimal" location
and it's still using the old "dumb" unmonitored single wire alternator that just pukes out 14v

[Levent]

On 1/10/2024 at 6:03 PM, vetali said:

30ma is likely within spec, depending on the size of the battery. That doesn't rule out a module "waking up" after an extended period and nuking the battery. But yeah, I've ran into off the shelf battery issues. My factory battery in my Passport went bad after 2 years. Barely started one morning, threw it on the charger at work and it failed the battery. 300 dollar AGM battery too.

You sir you might be on to something. I did something super dumb and disconnected BCM yesterday today I plugged it and checked the battery voltage and it was still 12.8v and car started right up. I am going to check if a relay is stuck or something, if not I guess then time has come to buy a VCDS myself. I am going to test tomorrow to see if car starts with BCM connected overnight.

[vetali]

6 hours ago, Levent said:

You sir you might be on to something. I did something super dumb and disconnected BCM yesterday today I plugged it and checked the battery voltage and it was still 12.8v and car started right up. I am going to check if a relay is stuck or something, if not I guess then time has come to buy a VCDS myself. I am going to test tomorrow to see if car starts with BCM connected overnight.

If you have a meter with a min/max range feature you can do a draw test with the max range set. Relays are like .08A, modules being awake will be around .2-.3A. You can also look at your remaining battery voltage for a direction. If its about 9-10.5v its usually a module. They start shutting themselves down at around 10v. Relays will cook it to a much lower voltage.

[Bitter]

Who's an idiot? I'm an idiot! I forgot to unplug my dash cam from the cig socket, the socket is live all the time direct to battery unlike my previous and other current car, so it ran all weekend and killed my battery so low it froze solid. I forgot to unplug it because I've been lazy and haven't installed the hardwire kit. I'm going to do that tomorrow on lunch, honest. Battery is currently in the bathroom on the counter in front of the heater with the 1.25a slow charger on it slowly coming back to life. I'm really considering sucking it up and ditching the flooded for AGM. Any compelling, besides cost, reasons not to?

[AlwaysFSX]

1 minute ago, Bitter said:

Who's an idiot? I'm an idiot! I forgot to unplug my dash cam from the cig socket, the socket is live all the time direct to battery unlike my previous and other current car, so it ran all weekend and killed my battery so low it froze solid. I forgot to unplug it because I've been lazy and haven't installed the hardwire kit. I'm going to do that tomorrow on lunch, honest. Battery is currently in the bathroom on the counter in front of the heater with the 1.25a slow charger on it slowly coming back to life. I'm really considering sucking it up and ditching the flooded for AGM. Any compelling, besides cost, reasons not to?

Ooooooooooooooooooooooof

I haven't had any issues with AGM in both really hot and really cold climates.

[Bitter]

3 minutes ago, AlwaysFSX said:

Ooooooooooooooooooooooof

I haven't had any issues with AGM in both really hot and really cold climates.

Car doesn't even have 2500 miles on it yet. Thankfully my boss can take a slightly different route in to work and pick me up or drop me off and is generally a nice guy.

 

I shook it a little a few minutes ago, I heard sloshing, so that's a good sign. Turned it to thaw on the other side for a while. It was -10F this morning (-23C) so I'm not shocked it froze just didn't even think about it being frozen solid like that and not taking a charge. Car started fine with a jump pack but probably not good to drive around trying to charge a frozen battery. I used to have a spare 35 battery in the basement but it was so old and had been floated so long it barely had any capacity in it so I got rid of it. My other car is parked the wrong direction to jump off of. My sump pump backup battery is also super old and evidently at end of life with no capacity, I couldn't get it to jump the car but it was able to power it on just not start. I'm really annoyed with myself. Plenty of other things went wrong today too so I guess it was just my time for all the bad luck in one day.

[bcredeur97]

Current status in southern Louisiana:

Freezing rain all yesterday afternoon into the night, combined with 35mph winds...  Power went out at home around 10:15. 

Woke up at 4:30ish, it was 44F inside my house.... so I promptly decided to just go to work super early lol

I could only open the driver's door on my car. Every other door had enough ice that I couldn't open them. How lucky is that? 

19F and the Touareg fired right up; although I did fill it up a couple days ago with plenty of Stanadyne, knowing the weather was coming. 

Where I live it was PITCH Black. I've never seen it so dark. So that was interesting

Was surprised I didn't come across any closed roads. Although I did leave super early. Stupid people still speeding over black ice and I'm seeing more and more reports of accidents since I got to work lol

[vetali]

22 hours ago, Bitter said:

Who's an idiot? I'm an idiot! I forgot to unplug my dash cam from the cig socket, the socket is live all the time direct to battery unlike my previous and other current car, so it ran all weekend and killed my battery so low it froze solid. I forgot to unplug it because I've been lazy and haven't installed the hardwire kit. I'm going to do that tomorrow on lunch, honest. Battery is currently in the bathroom on the counter in front of the heater with the 1.25a slow charger on it slowly coming back to life. I'm really considering sucking it up and ditching the flooded for AGM. Any compelling, besides cost, reasons not to?

In my experience they go bad about as often as flooded. Plus newer cars with battery management systems likely won't properly charge an AGM if its designed for flooded. So no real point in spending extra IMO.

 

Our pipes froze at work, waste oil heater being a bitch and wont get hot enough to stay on, plus slow af. Been a great week.

[Bitter]

1 hour ago, vetali said:

In my experience they go bad about as often as flooded. Plus newer cars with battery management systems likely won't properly charge an AGM if its designed for flooded. So no real point in spending extra IMO.

 

Our pipes froze at work, waste oil heater being a bitch and wont get hot enough to stay on, plus slow af. Been a great week.

Makes sense.

We haven't had any cold weather problems thankfully.

[Beerzerker]

On 1/11/2024 at 8:37 PM, bcredeur97 said:

it used to be you could get batteries and they would last about 7 years. Those days are long over though lol

Some batteries that fail can be brought back to working condition, depending on "How" it failed.

I'm aware of at least two tricks for different bad battery scenarios that may (Or may not) work, again it's based on how the battery failed and of course I can't guarantee success everytime. 
You'd have to try them and see for yourself.

One thing is you can do is take a welder and boil a battery to break loose sulfation that collects at the bottom of a cell, causing it to have a short resulting in a bad cell. You can Google about it if you want, there are vids that shows/tells how it's done and demonstrates it too. 

The other trick I know is in the case of a battery that has been sitting for a VERY long time, and the battery went dead from sitting all that time (Wasn't a bad battery when it's useage was stopped), and now it's simply refusing to accept a charge because of it.
Epsom salts can get it to start working again.

I'm well aware there is a point when something is just used up and that's it.
These tricks could help get the most life from one (Bang for your buck) or even get a battery working you coudn't afford to get replaced when the need for one happens, if it's failed for one of these reasons.

The bad cell trick is subjective of course, the one that uses Epsom Salts could be a real life saver or at least a cost breaker.
Like anything else, results can and will vary.

[bcredeur97]

2 hours ago, vetali said:

In my experience they go bad about as often as flooded. Plus newer cars with battery management systems likely won't properly charge an AGM if its designed for flooded. So no real point in spending extra IMO.

 

Our pipes froze at work, waste oil heater being a bitch and wont get hot enough to stay on, plus slow af. Been a great week.

Here’s a frozen A8 for u 

[vetali]

19 minutes ago, bcredeur97 said:

Here’s a frozen A8 for u 

 

Frozen passport after 20 minutes of remote start. Still couldn't get in the vehicle.

[Bitter]

Just throw some boiling water on it /s

[Bitter]

4 hours ago, vetali said:

In my experience they go bad about as often as flooded. Plus newer cars with battery management systems likely won't properly charge an AGM if its designed for flooded. So no real point in spending extra IMO.

 

Our pipes froze at work, waste oil heater being a bitch and wont get hot enough to stay on, plus slow af. Been a great week.

So ended up having a cold weather problem at work. Couldn't smoke test a car, I had flow but no visible smoke from the open vent. I'm pretty sure the -10F gas was condensing the smoke out of the air.

[vetali]

2 hours ago, Bitter said:

So ended up having a cold weather problem at work. Couldn't smoke test a car, I had flow but no visible smoke from the open vent. I'm pretty sure the -10F gas was condensing the smoke out of the air.

Or it couldn't get hot enough to burn the mineral oil. My ultrasonic was only hitting 55c today. Had to clean more used oil heater parts. Found an old ass manual that was different from the PDFs I was getting online and found another strainer around the suction pump. Cleaned it and oil flow improved but chamber temps are still bad. I think the oil is aerating due to a bad filter seal.

[Bitter]

4 hours ago, vetali said:

Or it couldn't get hot enough to burn the mineral oil. My ultrasonic was only hitting 55c today. Had to clean more used oil heater parts. Found an old ass manual that was different from the PDFs I was getting online and found another strainer around the suction pump. Cleaned it and oil flow improved but chamber temps are still bad. I think the oil is aerating due to a bad filter seal.

Nope, smoke was coming out of the machine just fine. Defo took a honk on that on that Bobo. I always make sure it's putting out visible smoke.

 

I warned you about that ultrasonic addiction

[TVwazhere]

On 1/15/2024 at 8:27 PM, Bitter said:

I'm going to do that tomorrow on lunch, honest.

Did you install that hardwire kit?  

 

I've never bought a dash cam for any of my vehicles without one, because I know myself and I'd do exactly what you did a lot. Just today I stopped at a store for a few minutes and when I came back my car door was wide open (it's 15ºF here)

[Bismut]

19 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

Just today I stopped at a store for a few minutes and when I came back my car door was wide open (it's 15ºF here)

How? I have heard of people leaving their car running while going to the movies, I have seen countless people leaving their windows down like 5cm while parked and now someone leaving their door open? I have never seen anything like that in Europe, I guess America is just different in that regard because of how car-centric it is?

[TVwazhere]

6 minutes ago, Bismut said:

someone leaving their door open?

I am a special class of stupid (truly, just not paying enough attention)

[Bismut]

2 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

I am a special class of stupid (truly, just not paying enough attention)

Eh yeah same, but I feel like I would not leave my car door open when going to a store.

I do forget almost everyones name though, so that is fun

[bcredeur97]

26 minutes ago, Bismut said:

Eh yeah same, but I feel like I would not leave my car door open when going to a store.

I do forget almost everyones name though, so that is fun

I used to leave the top of my miata down when walking into the UPS store. I got nervous doing that though lol

[Bitter]

7 hours ago, TVwazhere said:

Did you install that hardwire kit?  

 

I've never bought a dash cam for any of my vehicles without one, because I know myself and I'd do exactly what you did a lot. Just today I stopped at a store for a few minutes and when I came back my car door was wide open (it's 15ºF here)

No, I was sick as shit and came in 2 hours late. Migraines suck enough already but mine always twist my guts up in knots and foul up my digestion, basically a lot of my autonomic functions go haywire. Body temp regulation, digestion, blood pressure, to an extent pulse rate. If I move too fast I get dizzy or light headed, my balance is really bad, I can't think very fast, etc. I had to wait for it to calm down enough and meds to work enough to be safe to drive. I still felt bad at lunch time so I relaxed for a couple minutes then went back at it since I came in late.

I'm going to do it tomorrow. There's no ign switched fuses in the cabin, anything ign switched is under hood. There's no clean place to get wiring through into the cabin, the single pass through is taped up really tight and in a bad location to access one end of it in the engine bay since it hangs low. Some rando YT vid claims there's a white wire at the BCM that's ign switched so I'm going to check that tomorrow to make sure and see what's powering it to make sure it's safe to use. Assuming it is then I'll route everything and splice in my wiring and be done forgetting. Already forgot when I got home.

 

I once started my car to go somewhere, locked the door with my spare key to go inside and go to the bathroom, got distracted, got side tracked, got distracted again, forgot I was going to go somewhere, and about 2 hours later remembered I was supposed to go somewhere to get something I'd need later, couldn't find my keys, looked all over for like another 40 minutes, got my spare out of my wallet and went out to go drive with the spare key to find my car locked and running, THEN remembered I had already started it. Thankfully I haven't been that bad in a long time, life is much less distracting now than it used to be.