![]() Here’s how to know which one is the culprit. It can be hard to determine if you’re dealing with a battery or an alternator problem. If your vehicle won’t start, it’s usually caused by a dying or dead battery, loose or corroded connection cables, a bad alternator or an issue with the starter. 9 k is in the realm of 150AH Inverter grade battery not a 50-60AH Automotive one.Starting Problems? How to Tell If It’s the Battery or Alternator If you have a load verses voltage graph from the manufacturer even you can gauge the battery health - the further away from the line the worse it is.Īs noted in some other thread, once the voltage drops below a threshold, electronics starts misbehaving, hence the first sign of a bad battery would be random lights lighting up.īy the way, did the battery really cost Rs.9300/ new? Here in Delhi a battery for my Esteem costs between 22 (Exide, Amaron, Base etc). What the tool was doing is to gauge the battery charge holding capacity, by analysing the voltage at various loads. Costed me 9300 minus 800 for exchange = 8500/. So got a new Exide matrix with 5 years warranty (2.5 years full replacement, 2.5 years of depreciated discount for replacement) from a place called Karuna Auto electric near Sagar Automobiles. Given that the charging system is working alright (as inferred from the absense of the battery indicator), shouldn't it be possible to embed the above kind of logic directly in the ECU? ![]() The tool basically senses the load on the battery during the various operations. After a few more instructions, tool gives a printout. Switch off car, and connect the two wires to the battery.Ģ. From what I observed, the battery diagnostics tool works something like this:ġ. I definately feel that it is possible to distinguish the two cases. I'm sure why none of the cars sold today here this indicator (please correct me if I'm wrong). Given that there are indicators for all kinds of rare problems, why not an indicator for this common problem? In addition, the two indicators above had no relation to the actual issue. The current battery indicator just indicates charging problems, which I'm sure is a rarity. However, the big question now is: Why can't cars have a "battery problem" (or replace battery) indicator? If the battery tool could accurately guage the battery health, why not embed this logic in the ECU itself? This is one issue that each and every owner will be facing once every 2.5 to 3 years of ownership. Got the battery replaced, and everything got fixed. When I asked him why some random indicators lit up, he said that all sensors will start to malfunction when power is not optimum. He then connected the SDT and cleared the error codes. He connected the battery diagnostics tool, which rated my battery health as a poor 3/10 (that delivered the harsh and expensive verdict: Replace battery). ![]() The SA immediately analyzed it as a battery problem. Went immediately to the service center and explained the problem. And no indicator lights were lit up, giving an impression of absolute normalcy (I felt that this was my car's way of getting back at me for ignoring her!). Waited for some time and started again, and I was lucky to get it started on the fourth try. There was no noticeable "struggle" during the cranking. When I came back to my car to start, it would keep cranking and refused to start. Since I had to stop somewhere for some work, I switched off. Every morning was the same result - the two indicators would light up, and stopping and starting again would fix it. ![]() Since I was busy that week, I ignored the problem. Switching off and starting again would always fix the indicators. However, there was absolutely no problem in starting the car. Life was monotonously predictable and good, when suddenly one morning last week, two indicators continued to be lit up even after starting:Īccording to the owner's manual, The left one idicated "service reminder" (how considerate!), and the right one was "Water in the fuel filter, that needs to be drained". There's also an indicator for battery charging, which I'll come to later.Īfter servicing my car last August, I was driving my car with no issues. For example, my swift dzire has indicators for power steering problems, ECU, brakes, oil. These in turn are connected to the dashboard display to give visual feedback to the driver. You name the potential problem, and there's a sensor for it. ![]() Modern cars today are equipped with all kinds of sensors. ![]()
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