Thread: low battery level

Hi matbor, how long after you turned the engine off, did you take the reading because after about as little as 10 minutes, your battery can give a reading like that and it is a good reading.
Give us some more details.
Cheers.

Nothing wrong with 12.7 volts from a battery.

You're in trouble if your alternator isn't pumping out a bit more than that, though.

Hi matbor, if you want to do a basic check on the battery and charge system, after you have been for a drive of about 30 minutes or more.

When you get home, leave the motor running and pop the bonnet.

Put your meter probes on the terminals of the battery and you should get a voltage reading of between 13.8 and 14.2.

The reason you need to give the vehicle a bit of a drive is if you just start your Disco and test the voltage at the battery, because you have just started the motor and the battery may already by in need of some charging,. With the engine’s at idle and the battery’s not charge up, the voltage can very a fair bit.

Now to get a more accurate indication of how much charge your battery is holding, you would have to let the battery sit for about 3 days before testing, not very realistic but if you just leave your battery for about 2 hours after stopping the motor and then check again, you will probably find you will have the same reading as in you post and that’s fine.

Cheers

Just checked it, 13-14 volts while the car is running and if I levae the car over night the battery is around 12.4-12.7 volts in the morning !! It hasn't needed a jump start now for 2 days, since I gave the terminal's a really good clean. So might of fixed it, will see how it will go over the next couple of days and if it plays up again will take it up to a auto elec, only problem on hoilday in merimbula.

Thanks
Matt.

I found one of those floating ball in a tube thing with the bulb on the top (hydrometer or something :? ) is good for checking battery condition. Dip it in each and will show which cells are down.

Holding 12.7 overnight aint bad. Prolly was just dirty terminals.

yep have one of those hydro things, but it's one of those new sealed batteries !!!

Geez, 12.7 volts is pretty well perfect as you would expect from a new battery.
Sleep easy . There is nothing wrong.
About 12.8 is the max voltage for a battery, and multimeters generally aint that accurate.
Your radio and alarm memory will take about 0.05 AMPS to run so a 50 amp hour battery will run down in around 1000 hours or 40 days . So if you do not run the car often get a self regulating charger, about $69 at Kmart.
Reagrds Philip A

Thanks guys.