Car Died Tonight

J

JamesF

Member
Driving home tonight, battery warning light comes on and stays on and then sometime later more warning lights up on the dash (ABS, TC, Power Steering, Airbag etc), exterior lights become intermittent and so I have to give it up and pull over to the hard shoulder. Flatbed recovery home eventually but safely. Car has no power but rescue guy hooks up the battery to his booster and I'm able to drive the car off the flatbed to park it up under its own steam. Now I'm thinking its probably the alternator but could it just be the battery is dead? Car is just shy of its 6th birthday and in the time I've had it (5 years) it hasn't had either replaced already.

Oh, one other thing, the towing eye is supposed to be in the toolkit pouch right? The pouch closest to the velcro fastener? Just ask because mine was nowhere to be found. Which was a bit baffling.
 
Definitely sounds like a duff alternator. Sounds like its packed in and the battery has run the car as long as it possibly can. The best way to tell is place a voltmeter over the battery terminals when the engine is running. If the voltage is <13V its the Alternator.

Id then check the belts and pulleys at the front of the engine. You should be able to source one pretty cheaply from a scrappy :) Good luck with the fix!
 
Battery did reasonably well - I was only 10 minutes from home!! Unfortunately it was dark so lights etc were needed on and I had the heater on low to keep the windows from misting up. Other than that everything was off - stereo, A/C, sat nav screen, heated seats. Did wonder if turning DSC off would further reduce battery drain??

Not sure I'll get the engine running, think battery is totally dead now. Have to somehow get it to be fixed, think this will need to be collection by the stealer whenever they might be able to fit that in. Looks like a week (longer even?) of getting the train to work. :thumbsdown:

Cheers for the tips though :thumbsup:
 
EdButler said:
Definitely sounds like a duff alternator. Sounds like its packed in and the battery has run the car as long as it possibly can. The best way to tell is place a voltmeter over the battery terminals when the engine is running. If the voltage is <13V its the Alternator.

Id then check the belts and pulleys at the front of the engine. You should be able to source one pretty cheaply from a scrappy :) Good luck with the fix!
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This isnt a clear way of telling if the alternator is dead. It can still read 13v+ and be dead. You need a drop test done and to measure the Amps.
 
Useful link, thanks for that. I don't have the tools to make use of the info on this problem but I've stored the link for another day.

Stealer just called me to tell me the battery was dead. Hmm, thanks for that - even I could tell you that. So they want me to buy a new battery for £200 in order to enable them to do a £70 test on the alternator. You have to be kidding right? They have no way to test the alternator without me forking out £200 for a battery which may potentially be unnecessary? Well, surprise, surprise after me challenging this they called back and said they do actually have a battery they can use in place of mine to test the alternator. Unbelievable! :headbang:
 
JamesF said:
Useful link, thanks for that. I don't have the tools to make use of the info on this problem but I've stored the link for another day.

Stealer just called me to tell me the battery was dead. Hmm, thanks for that - even I could tell you that. So they want me to buy a new battery for £200 in order to enable them to do a £70 test on the alternator. You have to be kidding right? They have no way to test the alternator without me forking out £200 for a battery which may potentially be unnecessary? Well, surprise, surprise after me challenging this they called back and said they do actually have a battery they can use in place of mine to test the alternator. Unbelievable! :headbang:
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:rofl: they're having a laugh hoping you'd just buy a battery!

Sounds like the alternator to me. Similar thing happened to my Clio (yeah I know, not really a comparison...): started off with the wipers going slowly, then the interior lights/dashboard dimming, then the wipers failing, then the dashboard failing, then the instruments going, and finally the car just cut out. Luckily I got to within 500m of home, but I couldn't even lock the car because there was no power for the central locking and no manual buttons to press to lock the doors...
 
Mechanic said to me "yeah the battery is completely dead, not showing any charge at all" I pointed out that was hardly surprising as it alone was running all the electrics on the car for about an hour's drive (at night). Doesn't mean the battery is knackered, just that its completely run down. Talk about treating the symptoms.

What happened was very similar to your Clio experience. No reason it shouldn't be comparable - pretty basic car systems we're talking here. BMW thought through the total loss of power a bit better though - car can still be locked/unlocked with no power. Didn't take any chances with the locks when I knew it was cutting out though - unlocked the doors so I wouldn't get trapped!
 
Verdict - duff alternator; battery ok though not tip-top.

Trouble is the stealer doesn't have a replacement alternator and there are none in the country even! 3-5 days to get one from Germany. :thumbsdown:
 
JamesF said:
Useful link, thanks for that. I don't have the tools to make use of the info on this problem but I've stored the link for another day.

Stealer just called me to tell me the battery was dead. Hmm, thanks for that - even I could tell you that. So they want me to buy a new battery for £200 in order to enable them to do a £70 test on the alternator. You have to be kidding right? They have no way to test the alternator without me forking out £200 for a battery which may potentially be unnecessary? Well, surprise, surprise after me challenging this they called back and said they do actually have a battery they can use in place of mine to test the alternator. Unbelievable! :headbang:
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tell them to hook up a good battery in parallel with the charger and your battery the problem is that the fancy deutronic battery chargers we use for charging and during programming won't pick up a potential difference and as such will just say battery error. the battery will most likely be fine though you don't want to fully discharge it too often as it's not a deep recycling cell (i.e. it's designed to be charged and topped up not charged and completely discharged repetitively.

to be honest though they've got a nerve telling you the battery is dead (it could be i guess but not likely) as it's part of the instruction set that comes with the chargers that this has to be done. (the length of time that the chargers need to saty on the later model cars for programming means a basic charger would be a fire hazard or just not up to the task etc etc.

definately the alternator though it's worthwhile checking the wiring but from the way you've described it i doubt it's anything else

hope this helps
Lewis
 
JamesF said:
Driving home tonight, battery warning light comes on and stays on and then sometime later more warning lights up on the dash (ABS, TC, Power Steering, Airbag etc), exterior lights become intermittent and so I have to give it up and pull over to the hard shoulder. Flatbed recovery home eventually but safely. Car has no power but rescue guy hooks up the battery to his booster and I'm able to drive the car off the flatbed to park it up under its own steam. Now I'm thinking its probably the alternator but could it just be the battery is dead? Car is just shy of its 6th birthday and in the time I've had it (5 years) it hasn't had either replaced already.

Oh, one other thing, the towing eye is supposed to be in the toolkit pouch right? The pouch closest to the velcro fastener? Just ask because mine was nowhere to be found. Which was a bit baffling.
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I was told many years ago by my Dad (the Jag mechanic ) that batteries last about 6 or 7 years and I have had this proven to me a few times by my batteries dying at 6 or 7 years. (He wasn't so dumb after all !) A dead battery might take a charge for a bit then it's just going to quit. At 6 years old you should get a new battery anyway AND make sure your charging circuits (alternator, belts etc) are good as well.
 
Genius - the alternator has come in but upon taking the old one off the car they've realised its a specific Alpina unit which is twice as expensive and of course isn't in stock either. So further days without the car and a deeper hole in my pocket. :headbang:

mcbee - you may well be right about batteries, trouble is its difficult to take the word of the dealer when they tell you something is duff without even having done basic checks on it.
 
JamesF said:
Genius - the alternator has come in but upon taking the old one off the car they've realised its a specific Alpina unit which is twice as expensive and of course isn't in stock either. So further days without the car and a deeper hole in my pocket. :headbang:

mcbee - you may well be right about batteries, trouble is its difficult to take the word of the dealer when they tell you something is duff without even having done basic checks on it.
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I never take the word of the dealer without an educated second opinion, fortunately my old man was a high performance car mechanic in his day so I had an ' In ".
 
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