MK5 Golf GTI
All Things Mk5 => Mk5 General Area => Topic started by: Airz182 on March 20, 2015, 09:55:28 pm
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Put a new battery on my car around 6 weeks ago, so the other say i decided to take by front calipers off front grill and splitter off and paint them. So car has not been in daily use for a week or so. Whilst car has been sat in axle stands, i decided to fix my oil leak which i thought was coming from my oil pressure switch, undone it and retightened it. Finally get round to throwing all the bits back on the car, put wheels on and start the car. Starts fine. Washed it washed engine bay,,whilst car is running.
Jump in it next day, its dead.. Totally dead no dash display.. Nothing. Try putting battery charger in it for couple of hours, managed to get dash display but thats it, bearly enough power for anything else. Car will start off boost pack and everything is fine, left it running fir half an hour. Starts agaiin after leaving it 2hrs but next morning its dead again. No power whatso ever!
Any suggestions? Cheers
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I would say potentially washing the engine bay buggered the battery if you used hose pipe or pressure washer that's the only thing I can think of get it changed under warranty
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Alternator damaged with the under bonnet washing? Car starts with Boost Pack, but wont generate enough to recharge the battery.
Check alternator output.
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Cheers lads going to check alternater when i finish work,
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Checked alternater, not sure whether it was correct way of doing it but i put multimeter on it red end on positive and earth touching the alternater casing.
Was getting a reading just under 14v
So guessing it was working. Used the car for around 15mins on Saturday. Started fine sunday, no problems started fine this morning, drove to work 5miles away from home. Finished work battery was dead again!
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Could be blown cell get it replaced under warranty :signLOL:
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Yeah, see if you can get it swapped :wink: At least then you've ruled out the battery and can move onto something more expensive :evilgrin:
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Suggest you check for battery drain too
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How do you check for the battery drain? I gone out to it again this morning and its totally flat. Going to try exchange battery today. I just carnt work out why all of a sudden its just going flat for no reason.
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It's either a faulty battery, or something's draining it. Have you added anything new to the car recently (stereo etc)?
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No all ive done is painted a few bits on my car lol, i fitted a rcd510 last year but had the gateway coded and never had a issue.
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Well, next step is to get it swapped out and go from there I guess. Check the new battery voltage with everything off, then turn the engine on and see if the reading jumps up. If it doesn't, possibly a dodgy alternator.
Hopefully it's just a one off dodgy battery.
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I would say potentially washing the engine bay buggered the battery if you used hose pipe or pressure washer that's the only thing I can think of get it changed under warranty
Not chance at all unless parts are already failing.
We wash loads of cars, we clean the whole bay, engine running, avoid spraying directly on the battery/alternator, will put a plastic bag over exposed batteries, nearly all cars are covered now.
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I mainly washed the sump and back of engine, battery had its cover on it. I did wash near alternater but i think its still charging
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Update, Changed the battery was fine for 2days. Jumped in it for work today... Flat!
Jumpstarted it went to work, flat again when i left work.
A lad doen the road seems to think the alternator could be discharging the battery?
Ive check the glovebox light, boot light.
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It's relatively easy to check if you have a constant drain from the battery - if you know your way round a digital multi meter.
If not, I suggest you go to either a good garage or an Auto Electrician, who can check out the drain / charging for you.
I don't know where you are based, but I can give you the name of an excellent guy in Woking.
Not having a car you can rely on is a real pain!
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It's relatively easy to check if you have a constant drain from the battery - if you know your way round a digital multi meter.
If not, I suggest you go to either a good garage or an Auto Electrician, who can check out the drain / charging for you.
I don't know where you are based, but I can give you the name of an excellent guy in Woking.
Not having a car you can rely on is a real pain!
Cheers mate im in manchester! Ive tried to have a go with a multimeter. But cannot work out which setting it should be on! Next step is probably to pass it on to auto electricion
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No problem! Have a Google round - there is bound to be an Auto Electrician up there. :happy2:
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Have a read of this. Written for the mk4 Golf but the principle is the same
http://uk-mkivs.net/topic/10775-how-do-i-test/
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Cheers mate, will give it a read. Just gone to start it again and its flat. Totally peed off with it now!
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Would a vds scan show anything?
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Sorry to hear you're still having issues. VCDS will potentially show an error, but it's not necessarily going to tell you what's causing it. My battery needed replacing, and I was getting low voltage errors through vcds, but it could have been something else causing it. It was just an old battery, which isn't your problem.
Doing a simple multimeter test (as shown in that link) would be my first stop. That'll give you an idea of whether your alternator is okay. Then it would be a case of finding what is draining the battery.
Working a multimeter isn't hard, just do a quick Google :happy2:
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Sorry to hear your woes. It does sound like you may have damaged the alternator with the power washing.From what you say it sounds like it is not charging. i.e works ok for 2 days with new battery then dead even after a jump start.
A VCDS scan should pick up an alternator fault.
Alternatively if you have a multimeter put it across battery in Volts mode, with engine running you should get reading of around 14 volts with electrics off. If you get 12volts or less alternator is not working.
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So far car has started everytime since last posting, so fingers crossed it stays that way!
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Right after my flat battery issue i got a new replacement battery, all has been fine for 3weeks now its flat again!
Looking through various posts ive come across 2 things,
1: the rcd510 headunits sometimes not turning off?? So i startes looking through my fuses in the driverside fuse box, looking for the stereo fuse, took every fuse out and the stereo still
Stayed on?
2: the gti is supposed to be fittes with a 72ah battery
Just checked mine and its a 50ah battery.
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That is the battery capacity. Yours is under spec yes, but it should still not run flat overnight. Even a 50ah battery should last weeks without starting the car. You have a significant battery drain issue, have you looked in to this with the multimeter yet?
When was the RCD fitted and what gateway do you have? part number?
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The rcd unit was fotted a year ago and i updated the canbus with a later one, and had it coded. I only tested the alternator which i was getting 14v from. My multimeter wouldnt go low enough to measure amp draw.
A mechanic seems to think the alternator could
Be decharging the battery? He hasnt looked at it. (Nobody seems to want to!)
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It is possible, a bad diode could cause it, along with anything else in the electrical system. You either need to get a better multimeter (£10 Maplin jobbies are more than enough for this) or you need to get an auto-electrician to look at it rather than a mechanic