Team-BHP - Did your car suffer a dead battery during the lockdown?

Did NOT face dead batteries in the lockdown. Simple routine I followed was to alternate between the two vehicles for errands like groceries, medicines, ATM, etc. And every time I took one vehicle out on the errand, I would idle the other one for 5 mins.

Car's battery is more than 3 years old, still the engine springs to life in one crank.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kosfactor (Post 5073758)

This way the vehicles gets a 12-15km round trip, keep everything in good shape. I do not like to cold start and idle the car, I prefer the engine warm up while being driven, AC on etc.

If your vehicles have not been driven for many weeks and you think the battery is down, do not attempt to start - a weak battery can damage the starter.

A 12-15 km trip will hardly charge the battery by more than 1%. No way a flat battery can damage the starter motor. It will only not crank with a flat battery.

I drove a 40 kilometer trip yesterday and my battery charge went up from 82 to 84%. I switched on the headlights for 10 seconds to get rid of the surface charge and it went down to 83%. I get these figures from a battery monitor.

Yes, my car battery had gone down during the lockdown, and one day the car wouldn't start.

Instead of replacing the battery, I just charged the battery using the home inverter for few hours and after that, it has been functioning just fine for more than six weeks now. The car usage is still very minimal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Indian2003 (Post 5074061)

A 12-15 km trip will hardly charge the battery by more than 1%.

Yes, we cannot expect the battery to get charged magically with a short drive. Use a dedicated charger at home or make use of the home inverter system to give it a boost charge for few hours.

My Dominar's battery died during the lockdown period. Once I discovered it's dead, pulled it out and got it recharged for a 100 bucks. Now I an religiously firing up my bike every weekend and taking it out for a little spin or at least let it idle for some time.
My i20 Elite has been kind to me till now. No issues with battery even when not used for more than 90 days. This one too gets to go for a spin or idle for some time on weekends.

The Activa on the other hand sees regular usage being the practical vehicle it is. So no issues with it.

Highly likely to end up finding a dead or almost dying battery if the vehicle has not been used for a long time.

My Apache's battery was dead when I tried to start after a month and had to get a new one. Thereon, I ensure that there is not a week without any of the vehicles in my garage either have their engines running idle for at least 5-10 minutes or better yet, a spin for a couple of kilometers so that the alternator gets to work.

Having said that, if not in a position to take care of the above, it would be best to remove the negative terminal and preserve the battery.

This is one serious issue vehicle owners should pay heed to. Especially, at times like lockdown and lesser commute.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Indian2003 (Post 5074061)

The higher ambient temperature and relatively long time it takes to cover those Kms means the battery should be near full during that drive. The diesel engine starts instantly and the stereo keeps playing, good enough I would think.

Yes you are right a flat battery wont crank the engine over, a weak one will seem alright until you attempt to start the vehicle and you can hear an starter gasping for breath. There is a tendency with customers refusing to change a weak battery because its still starting the vehicle over in the morning until it eventually stops doing that. If this happens, its possible that the alternator and starter will fail after some time.

Thankfully - both cars doing fine. Every 3rd or 4th weekend - I take out the Nexon and drive for about 50 kms on the highway maintaining about 80kmph. Single start and constant run on highway, to extract maximum recharge. Alto gets run once in the same 3-4 week window for errands. I take detours outside of actual work, to ensure it gets sufficient running with engine ON for recharge. One battery is 2.5 years old, the other is ~5 year old. And both cars have insane amount of electrical gadgetry hooked-up.

Fingers crossed, both are doing fine & cranks are still instantaneous. For the worst case scenario, I have a charger at home that I'll put to use if one of them decides to take a rest break.

All the vehicles (two 4W and 2W each) pulled through the lockdown last year well and seem to be doing okay with the lockdown this year. Last year - I cranked both the cars once in ten days and kept them running for about 15-20min, which included a spin within the society premises for about 3-4 kms. That was all I could do since stepping out of the society wasn't permitted then.

This year - similar process but I try to use the cars for grocery/utility runs.

While all the batteries are doing fine, I do suspect that the lockdowns + significantly longer periods between usage (due to wfh) overall would lead to a relatively shorter life?

During the lockdown had to visit the hospital for some paperwork.

I used the 800 that day. Thanks to the lockdown, cops had barricaded even some main roads and traffic was allowed only on one side.
Instinctively switched on the headlight and then completely forgot about it when parking the car.

Came back to the car after 90 mins or so, only to find that the car's central locking seemed to be iffy.
Realized the headlight was on and turned it off.

Tried to start the car, no luck. Called Exidecare, but that was not helpful (all numbers that they gave, did not answer my call). They did offer to send someone the next day which I was not ok with.

Tried push-start, no luck.

There were 2 Maruti authorized service centers within a 2 km radius, but none of them were open thanks to the lockdown. Their emergency service numbers (specific to the service center) were not reachable either.

Finally called the supervisor of the garage where we service the car.
Fortunately he answered and came over with a spare battery in sometime.

Car was started within a few minutes and all good.

Mental note, be wary of headlight use during the day in 800 and stop expecting all cars to holler when you remove the key with lights on.

Yes, the batteries died completely in my Figo, and I was fully prepared to replace it with a new one. Luckily, a charger that my dad made, has turned it around. After plugging it in for close to 2 weeks, the battery has almost recovered completely. Nowadays, I fire it up and idle for sometime every 3 or 4 days, and keep the charger on full time.

Nope, no dead batteries during the lockdown.

I would fire up my rides at least twice a week during the lockdowns. This has been a habit even for the rides I use rarely. I also make it a point to run the electrical for a while, such as the A/C, music system etc. Each starting would also be followed by moving the vehicles a bit front or back so as to avoid getting a flat spot on the tyres.

My car is five and half years old and still running on OEM battery. I usually take the car out once a week to get 20 litres water bottles filled up at a nearby water kiosk, about 3 kms round trip. Moving the car also helps in avoiding flat tyre spots. I will change the battery whenever car does not start in single crank.

We did not have any lockdown only restrictions intermittently here even then the running of our household vehicles has been abysmal in the last 12 months.

My wife's SUV has been parked since last March and I hooked it up with a trickle charger every alternate week (the trickle charger goes onto my car for a week in between). It is 2010 and is onto its second battery.

My 535i is parked every year from November to May as it is purely a summer/weekend car therefore I have been using the trickle charger for a few years now. The AGM battery in this car frightfully expensive so keeping it in good health was warranted.

Additionally, the peak winter temperature here dips to -35C which is not particularly healthy for car batteries so I had invested in a NOCO Genius 7200 smart charger a few years ago when we moved from Vancouver to Calgary in 2013. It has a Normal/AGM & 12V/24V mode and can charge any battery rated between 14 to 230Ah; must say one of the better investments that I have made for my garage.

Keeping the cars hooked on to a smart charger also takes care of the sulfation of the batteries to an extent.

My daily driver was getting driven at least once every two weeks for running errands so its battery is fine besides it is relatively newer (2019).

My daughter's car (it's 2013 and onto its second battery) was getting driven at least once a week so it did fine as well.