[Supervinnie40]

Originally Posted by SD1too

I gave you the official MGR version in post no. 16 Vinnie.
Sorry, I forgot that when I was typing my text. Was getting slightly upset with not being able to find the problem.
It's normal for the voltage to be temporarily high for a period immediately after charging.
Fair enough. So the discharge could be lower then I thought. we'll see what it says tomorrow. Should give a more honest representation.

Vinnie, do you normally do a lot of short journeys or is the car left unused for long periods?
Normally not, but with the semi-lockdown in Holland I either left it standing still for a week easily, and did a few short drives (about 15km, parking and driving back 15km after an hour)

That suggests that your battery was either in need of external charging or it had already passed the point of no return. It happens to us all. Despite taking precautions during the lockdown, I ended up with a flat battery.
To be honest, it happened twice that my battery was below 6v. Some sources say the battery is scrap after this. Weirdly enough, this happened after only 1.5 weeks after parking the car. I did several longer runs (40km) before that time.

Simon

Originally Posted by COLVERT

1/ How old is your battery ?
This one is about 8 months old. Replaced it after the previous one also drained and wouldn't charge back up properly anymore.

2/ How long do you charge it for when you say--I've charged the battery---?
My battery charger stops automatically and goes into trickel-charge after that. I only disconnect the charger after I saw the trickle-charge light come on.

3/ Your car will not start on a battery voltage of 11.33 volts.
Thanks for that info. That is not a good sign if my battery really does discharge on its own

4/ All batteries slowly discharge by themselves. From full to just about flat can take six months or more though.
In my case it only took 1 week to go down to 6v after parking the car after regular use.

5/ As a battery in use discharges, the current flows from Negative to Positive terminals.---
I measured a few times between the + lead and the - lead. I got the same readings. I have been told that it doesn't really matter, you only need to be careful not to touch the body with the + lead.

I'll retry to measure the voltage tomorrow. That should give a better indication on the discharge.
I do remember the car starting and driving pretty much fine before. After parking the car (after regular use) the battery drained within 1.5 week, and started to go empty more quickly. The last time, it took 2 or 3 days to go empty enough to not start the car anymore (and this was after a full charge).