Re: Charging Problem...please help me!

[Jason <jason@scirocco.org>]

At 04:51 AM 1/8/99 , Sal Guzzo wrote:
>Well,
>
>I got my car back today thinking that everything was going to be
>alright..........guess not.  Thankfully I was with some people who assited
>in push starting my Rabbit.  Here's my problem which I can't figure out.  I
>can start the car and run it fine.  The volt. gauge reads about 13v while
>driving.  If I shut the car off and try to start it, it starts.  However,
>if I let the car sit for a while, nothing happens. The lights will come on
>and then it'll try to crank and just dies.  Okay, this car is really toying
>with me...I'm try to brainstorm some ideas about this prob. and this is
>what I came up with:

Sal,
	You're on the right track to find the problem... You're right, it's not
your starter, and it's probably not your alternator, if it's putting out 13V.
	You have one of two problems: (1) You have a short somewhere.  The easy
way to test to see if you have a drain is to disconnect the battery
overnight and see if the same problem re-occurs.  Of course, what you
really should to is connect an ammeter and see how much current draw there
is.  I've never done this, of course, so I don't know how much draw is
normal and how much isn't.  It shouldn't be much of anything at *all*,
though... certainly less than an amp-- probably less than 0.25A, right guys?
	What is more likely your problem is that the battery is toast.  Once a
battery reaches the end of its useful life, it retains less and less charge
for less and less time.  A dead battery might retain enough charge for a
few minutes after driving to start the car again, but that charge would
fade out really quickly.
	You can test this by borrowing another battery and seeing what happens; or
a better way is to charge it with a charger (or have a shop do it), and
then have it tested.  The last Wal-Mart I was in had a neat battery
tester-- just hook it up, hit "START" and it tells you "A-Okay" or "Pitch
It"...
	Normally, I would lay bets that it's your battery-- especially because
it's now winter and batteries hate cold weather.  However, before you go
and spend $50 on a new battery, go to Pep Boys or something and see if they
can measure the draw from your battery with your ignition switched off.
Chances are, it'll be normal, you'll swap a new battery in there, and all
will be fine.
	
	Good luck, and keep us all posted!
			Jason




----------
jason@scirocco.org
1987 Scirocco 16v

http://members.aol.com/rocco16v 

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