General consensus appears to be that it could in fact be the 'new' battery that is the cause of it not starting, not a dodgy starter motor. Here's the facts:
- Sunday
- No lights when just connected to original battery
- Connected to 4X4 via jump leads
- 1st attempt wouldn't start - starter wouldn't complete 1 revolution
- 2nd attempt after leaving 4X4 running at higher revs for 5 mins started fine via the key
- 3rd attempt (approx 1hr later) wouldn't start under it 'own steam' or via the running 4X4 as per 1st attempt
- Wednesday
- All lights on dash, plus electric windows, central locking, wipers, headlights all work fine
- Tried starting 'under its own steam' but starter wouldn't go fast enough - noticeably better than 1st/3rd attempts on Sunday though
So maybe the 'new' battery is either a) faulty or b) not fully charged? We had it on a charge for 24hrs, but maybe we should have tried it for longer?
Plan ahead...
Tonight I'm also going to try jump starting the eSpace with the 'new' battery AND the 4X4 (both running and not running). Hopefully the combined charge in both will get the eSpace going - which I guess proves the starter motor is fine?
If there's time after work tomorrow I'll take the 'new' battery into a local garage and see if they can test it. (I can only test the voltage, not the amps which is the important bit). Depending on the outcome of that I'll stick it on charge for another 48hours and see if that has any effect.
Thoughts...
Now buying a £93 battery for 1 trip to Rome seems excessive, especially as we're not bringing it back! So it makes more economic sense to buy a 'portable jump starter' for < £30 (on amazon here, picture above) which we just use each time we need to start the engine - and then immediately put it on charge inside the eSpace once it's going. Also it has a build in compressor so we can pump up any flat tyres we get and I can bring it back on the easyjet flight to use again and again (even if we didn't it'd still save £60+ on new battery from Halfords). We could even try and run cables so we could 'jump' start from inside...
Tim raised a point - does a car need to be able to start off an 'attached' battery to pass an MOT? I've had a look here and here and can't see it mentioned... anybody know?
1 comment:
It does need to be able to start without any 'help' for an MOT as they cannot test most other stuff without starting it.
Also 24 hours should definitely fully charge it I'm pretty sure. If it has been drained too much in it's life it may be permanently fucked.
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