Very slow start after sitting one day in the cold. 1yr old battery. What's going on?

Sella Turcica

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105k mi on our 05.5 TDI. Got a new battery one year ago because of very slow cranking, which rectified the situation. No obvious electrical problems. I run powerservice all the time.

The car was driven all week and then sat for maybe 36 hours in 20F cold, and I went to start it at 30F today. GP light acted normally (out in about 2 sec) and I waited maybe 3 or 4 sec after that. It cranked so slowly and pathetically that I was sure for just a couple seconds that I'd have to jumpstart it (MIL/lights all went out, etc). Then it unleashed the poof of smoke and clattered to life.

:cool: That's insane. I can leave my Camry out for a week, with a 3x older battery and it starts instantly. Same with the BMW. So something isn't right here. This is my wife's DD and it has to start reliably on a daily basis.

Is there a way to figure out the plan of action? I know some people have a bad drain with the delphi radio, but I'm not sure how to verify this. I have a multimeter handy. Is this the kind of thing a frostheater/zerostart/trickle charge would help, or no?

Thanks
 

VeeDubTDI

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Sounds like you have an electrical drain somewhere, a bad battery, or perhaps a battery that is the wrong size. Check the battery voltage before attempting one of these slow starts and report your findings.
 

leicaman

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What you might have going bad on you is the starter. Sometimes a starter can have excessive draw of juice and not work correctly. My wife's Taurus had a simular affliction and we ended up replacing the starter and since then it has been perfect.
 

ruking

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The obvious first thing to do is to trouble shoot to see if you do have undetected battery drain issues. The second thing is there ARE intended 24/7 battery "trickle" drains. Some obvious examples, clock, MFD, alarm system, computer's maintenance, etc. I just do not know all of them specifically, other than to specifically say : there are 24/7 intended trickle drains. This of course further drains your battery. One third reason is the TDI has a higher CCA demand over gassers like Camry. A fourth one is the VW charging system is NOT designed to bring the battery back to 100% charge. All you need do is to hook up a battery trickle charger ( like battery tender plus) to verify this. My anecdotal experiences are it takes the TDI battery much longer to come to 100% than say any of my gasser batteries, even as the VW battery is FAR more powerful. Another example is I ran a Civic battery 66 mo 111,000 miles) before it died. (Wussie battery) The (oem new) battery was rated @400 CCA. It did not start when it was measured @ 20 CCA. It was replaced with a Kirtland Brand battery rated @ 500 CCA.
 
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Sella Turcica

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Will check battery voltage next time it sits. What's the proper way to test electrical drain and also determine if it's excessive? Good points about the CCAs. Her total daily commute is something like 50 miles daily, I'd be surprised if it didn't recharge adequately in that time.
 

ruking

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Will check battery voltage next time it sits. What's the proper way to test electrical drain and also determine if it's excessive? Good points about the CCAs. Her total daily commute is something like 50 miles daily, I'd be surprised if it didn't recharge adequately in that time.
Perhaps I may have ( technically) misspoke. I am certain a 50 miles commute brings the charging levels up (Up from what to what, I do not know. However, it does NOT bring it to 100%. As per a previous post how much under 80% is unknown exactly. The interesting thing is on the battery tender plus you can see GRAPHICALLY. 1 charging (actual % unknown) 2. 80% charged 3. 100% charged.

So for example it really does not take the TDI's very long to come up to 80% (30 mins to 3 hours) . I just don't stand there during that time to measure it EXACTLY and the switch over time/s to 100%.
 
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VeeDubTDI

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A 50 mile commute is more than sufficient to bring the charge levels back up - unless you have a weak/bad alternator.
 

Sella Turcica

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A 50 mile commute is more than sufficient to bring the charge levels back up - unless you have a weak/bad alternator.
I agree, something is amiss - She drove Mon-Fri, the car sat Friday night, all of Saturday (so two 20F nights) and then I *barely* started it around noon Sunday.
 

PeterV

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look at the top of this screen and check the VAG COM l;ist for a guru near you. Usually they will scan your car for free. In addiditon they could assist you in finding your problem.
 

Sella Turcica

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first thing I did was run the vagcom after the bad start - nothing worth reporting. She took it out for groceries soon afterward and said she noticed "something" too.

I got the OEM battery straight from the dealer 17k mi and 1 yr ago. It would be pretty lame for the battery to fail, the original lasted 4 years. I am going to check it at 5 AM before she gets up for work. Am I just checking for voltage at the terminals, or something else?
 
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Jack Frost

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105k mi on our 05.5 TDI. Got a new battery one year ago because of very slow cranking, which rectified the situation.
You didn't say how long you had your previous battery. But since your new battery didn't last long, then it is possible that you have some other resolved issue that needs to be fixed before you pop in another one.

I don't think it is true, as someone else has said, that VW cars do not charge batteries properly. How batteries get charged depends a lot on the charging voltage, the condition of the battery, as long you run the car for, as well as now much "trickle drain", how long your car sits between startups. as well as if your battery has experienced any deep discharges, shocks or excessive vibration. If any of those conditions are incorrect, you will end up with a battery that expires before its time. Whatever, the battery does not know whether it is connected to a Camry or a VW.

You should check the charging voltage as well as the battery's voltage while it cranks. As someone said check the discharge current while the car is powered off.
 

MyAvocation

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Battery could be bad, or as stated earlier the alternator.

A volt/amp meter will be of limited use, until an electrical drain is confirmed. What you need is a battery load tester -- one rated for your CCA size. You can get a cheap one from Northern Tool and elsewhere.

With a load tester, check load when wife parks car for the night. Check again in the morning or better yet 18-24 hours later. Expect minimal loss. You may need to put the battery on a charger if load is consistently low. Then repeat test with fully charged battery.

Also, is the wife using the heat accessories in the car all day (seats, mirrors, rear de-fogger and AUX heater)? These will deplete the battery over time during short and urban/suburban driving. This is my first guess, as I've experienced it too.
 

ruking

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Battery could be bad, or as stated earlier the alternator.

A volt/amp meter will be of limited use, until an electrical drain is confirmed. What you need is a battery load tester -- one rated for your CCA size. You can get a cheap one from Northern Tool and elsewhere.

With a load tester, check load when wife parks car for the night. Check again in the morning or better yet 18-24 hours later. Expect minimal loss. You may need to put the battery on a charger if load is consistently low. Then repeat test with fully charged battery.

Also, is the wife using the heat accessories in the car all day (seats, mirrors, rear de-fogger and AUX heater)? These will deplete the battery over time during short and urban/suburban driving. This is my first guess, as I've experienced it too.
Indeed anymore a car is actually expected to be an aux to main battery source for a host of extra demand items (GPS, radar detector, high wattage sound systems, shavers, computer plug ins, etc). This is a tad counter intuitive, as the VW charging system is really not designed to get the battery back to 100%. Now my swag is close to 75% but that is really a swag. So in effect, not much substitutes for real numbers.
 

tactdi

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A known electrical drain is the radio. It gets an internal short, and will drain the battery. Check the circuit #19 in the box under the hood. On mine with short in the radio the draw was noticably higher than the other circuits in the same box. I have been pulling that fuse to prevent the battery drain while I work to replace the radio.
 

Jack Frost

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This is all that you said.

A fourth one is the VW charging system is NOT designed to bring the battery back to 100% charge.\
What you need to say is what design feature in a VW charging system is responsible for not charging a battery. A charging system has many components and has many parameters. If a VW charging system is not designed to charge a battery back to 100%, then what is it designed to do instead?

To say it is designed to not charge batteries to 100%, insituates that a VW engineer deliberately intended this to take place and all VW cars do this and do this for a engineering reason. In fact, if you are right, then a VW car that is charging its battery properly is faulty and should be taken into the dealership to get "fixed" (whatever that is).
 

vwluca

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Starter, I doubt it. My suggestion is before trying to find thousands of maybes, first start the car and with a voltmeter you should get approx 14V+ at the battery. Then, remove any battery cable ( one only) and use an ampmeter inline between that cable and the battery post to check for possible drains while the car is OFF. If it is above 1Amp you definitely have a drain problem somewhere and THEN you should be looking further. If not, well your battery isn't good. My 2006 had this issue after barely only 2 years. A high tech tester from the dealer said battery was OK. Replaced it anyway and voilà. It is not rare to see a 1 year old battery week especially if your battery isn't the right one for our TDIs. Remember, TDIs require lots of juice when cold. You have a BIG starter to power and glow plugs require also lots of juice. For the past 21 years, I'm at my 7th VW diesel, and I never had to boost any of them even if some say that they only get 80% charged. But remember, a battery is a battery even if you drive Japanese, German......cars. They do tend to fail. Like my Canadian neighbour JACK FROST said , a battery doesn't know if your car is a Camry or a VW.

Luc

COLD Montreal, Canada
 
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Sella Turcica

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A known electrical drain is the radio. It gets an internal short, and will drain the battery. Check the circuit #19 in the box under the hood. On mine with short in the radio the draw was noticably higher than the other circuits in the same box. I have been pulling that fuse to prevent the battery drain while I work to replace the radio.
This is something I'm trying to ask about explicitly here. Do I just pull the fuse and measure across the terminals with a voltmeter - volts, amps, watts? lol. I can do this, but I haven't done it before. Somebody school me on electrical drain.

(this isn't the first time I've dealt with it, my sister's 95 Volvo 854T has such a phantom drain that she put a battery cutoff switch on it - yikes. But that thing is a beater, not a DD, so we don't care.)

And like I've said before, even though the battery is one year old it's a VW OEM battery for my TDI. It seems a bit lame that they'd sell me a crap battery, but I suppose it's possible.
 
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vwluca

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I had replaced my wife's battery july 2009 also with an original from VW witch I consider to be great batteries and june 2010 gone !!

If you remove a battery cable instead of a fuse, it is as easy/quick and you will have a better picture of the TOTAL current drain with only one test.

Remember a drain could be, radio, alternator, PCM etc... witch means many fuses.

Luc
Montreal, Canada
 

ruking

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This is all that you said.



What you need to say is what design feature in a VW charging system is responsible for not charging a battery. A charging system has many components and has many parameters. If a VW charging system is not designed to charge a battery back to 100%, then what is it designed to do instead?

To say it is designed to not charge batteries to 100%, insituates that a VW engineer deliberately intended this to take place and all VW cars do this and do this for a engineering reason. In fact, if you are right, then a VW car that is charging its battery properly is faulty and should be taken into the dealership to get "fixed" (whatever that is).
Very simply LESS than 100%. Actually you should pose the question to VW on why they see fit to NOT let/design the charging systems to bring back the battery either @ or CLOSER to 100%. I am just giving you the business end of the results of reading 6 to more batteries, over a couple of years of reading the Battery Tender Plus led light display. In addition, it is HIGHLY unlikely they could have given me 2 TDI's 03/09 that happen to follow the same drill, if it were not true. If the results of your battery trickle charger experiences are different, pray tell.
 
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ruking

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This is something I'm trying to ask about explicitly here. Do I just pull the fuse and measure across the terminals with a voltmeter - volts, amps, watts? lol. I can do this, but I haven't done it before. Somebody school me on electrical drain.

(this isn't the first time I've dealt with it, my sister's 95 Volvo 854T has such a phantom drain that she put a battery cutoff switch on it - yikes. But that thing is a beater, not a DD, so we don't care.)

And like I've said before, even though the battery is one year old it's a VW OEM battery for my TDI. It seems a bit lame that they'd sell me a crap battery, but I suppose it's possible.
You know it probably is not "crap " but sold to you under less than full charge conditions. So for example, I bought a Kirtland 51-4 model number battery. It was FRESHLY manufactured or had a 10 /10 sticker on it. My guess it it was less than a week old even as I bought it on the 19th of that month and year. First thing I did was hook it up to the battery trickle charger (Battery Tender Plus). It took the better part of a day (6 hours) to come up to 100%. Since installation and probably the nexus here, it cranks flawlessly and even operating cp battery charge, A/C, radio and in rolling parking lot commute traffic, it takes less than 10-15 mins to get up to 100% battery charge.
 
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Sella Turcica

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so basically "topping it off" with a trickle charge (ie: once a week) won't hurt, is the message I get. Still, that's a rather lousy routine on a 5 year old car. I'll do it for now, but getting to the bottom of it will be best.
 

ruking

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2003 VW Jetta, 5 M, Reflex Silver: 09 Jetta, 6 Sp DSG, Candy White: 12 VW Touareg, 8 Sp A/T, Flint Gray
so basically "topping it off" with a trickle charge (ie: once a week) won't hurt, is the message I get. Still, that's a rather lousy routine on a 5 year old car. I'll do it for now, but getting to the bottom of it will be best.

Indeed on all counts. I would however get to the bottom first. Then decide if you really want to do the trickle charger routine. Previous to having a lot of "economy cars" (specifically VW TDI), I was really used to having batteries last 8 to 11 years with not even a thought to a battery trickle charger.
 

Mr. Clean

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Brandon, Manitoba, Canada
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2004 TDI Jetta Wagon 1.9L
Issues with a Bad Battery

I am technical by trade, and here are some things to think about:

Do not by a Chinese made battery at Wall Mart - you get what you pay for.

I suggest Interstate for a car battery.


Even brand new quality batteries have been known to die in one year.

NAPA does battery testing on their test bench while the battery is under load, so take out the battery, haul it to a NAPA dealer and get them to test it for free. NAPA batteries are good batteries as well. Then if the battery is good, ask the NAPA dealer for a good automotive shop that specializes in charging systems, and head for that shop. The shop should find the problem in about 1/2 hour.

As well, if your ground cable or negative battery terminal cable which connects from the negative battery post eventually to the frame of the car, is loose on the car frame connection or is corroded, you can get battery drain. If this ground cable needs to be replaced, I highly recommend this cable be replaced with a beefier cable, as most ground cables are actually undersized.
I custom made my own ground cable once, which was way too overkill in size, and what an incredible difference in vehicle starts - like I had a new vehicle. I learned about larger negative battery cables and better starts from people working in the trades in far northern Canada where -60C is the normal temp on windy days. These guys had to have their trucks start, or life gets very serious very quickly - freezing to death was not an option.

BATTERIES AVAILABLE: (COPIED FROM ANOTHER POSTING ON THE WEB)

Most auto batteries are made by just three manufacturers, Delphi, Exide, and Johnson Controls Industries. Each makes batteries sold under several different brand names. Delphi makes ACDelco and some EverStart (Wal-Mart) models. Exide makes Champion, Exide, Napa, and some EverStart batteries. Johnson Controls makes Diehard (Sears), Duralast (AutoZone), Interstate, Kirkland (Costco), Motorcraft (Ford), and some EverStarts.
 

tactdi

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Location
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2005.5 Jetta
This is something I'm trying to ask about explicitly here. Do I just pull the fuse and measure across the terminals with a voltmeter - volts, amps, watts? lol. I can do this, but I haven't done it before. Somebody school me on electrical drain.

(this isn't the first time I've dealt with it, my sister's 95 Volvo 854T has such a phantom drain that she put a battery cutoff switch on it - yikes. But that thing is a beater, not a DD, so we don't care.)

And like I've said before, even though the battery is one year old it's a VW OEM battery for my TDI. It seems a bit lame that they'd sell me a crap battery, but I suppose it's possible.
There is a TSB 27-07-11 that covers troubleshooting electrical drains (found this TSB from another thread) http://www.clubtouareg.com/forums/f73/tsb-pdf-files-12140.html

It explains what setting to use on the voltmeter, and you can test the circuit with the fuse in place. The fuses have a small hole on each side to stick the probe from the volmeter into.
 

Sella Turcica

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There is a TSB 27-07-11 that covers troubleshooting electrical drains (found this TSB from another thread) http://www.clubtouareg.com/forums/f73/tsb-pdf-files-12140.html

It explains what setting to use on the voltmeter, and you can test the circuit with the fuse in place. The fuses have a small hole on each side to stick the probe from the volmeter into.
thanks! I will check this out. This morning the voltage was 12.29 in the dark cold of night. It started up fine.

Can I use the vagcom/vcds to do real-time electrical system monitoring (ie: alternator charging state)? I've never tried anything but the usual "scan everything" button.
 
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tactdi

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2005.5 Jetta
On my Jetta and the other cars that I have, the batteries in all the cars register between 12.28 and 12.58 (Virginia cold 20 - 30 degress). I think that if the battery has more than 12, the car should start.

Vagcom will show the charging state, on my car it registered +14 while driving.
 

Sella Turcica

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Vagcom will show the charging state, on my car it registered +14 while driving.
Anyone know off-hand, what the cutoff values might be? ie: for a weak alternator. Today or tomorrow I'll utilize that TSB to check for drain. At least if it's just the stupid radio I'll pull the fuse when the car sits. :D
 

Jack Frost

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If you put a multimeter on the posts of the battery, the charging voltage should be 14 volts or more. I always see about 14.3 to 14.6 volts on healthy charging systems.

However, if you get a low voltage that doesn't mean it is the fault of the alternator. My tractor stopped starting this winter (at least it barely started). The charging voltage was 14.0 volts. I took the batteries (it has two connected in parallel) inside and tested them. They had resting voltages of 12.7 volts each which isn't not by itself an indication of a problem.

I then tickle charged them both separately. They both reached 14 volts, but the voltage did not rise quickly at that point as it does on a healthy battery. However, they did eventually come up to 14.4 volts but were showing signs of an internal short as they refused to come up to 14.45 volts as they would the previous year when I did this.

I purchased two new batteries and put them in. The tractor started up within half a crank. I checked the charging voltage. It was now 14.6 volts :eek:

Conclusion: The old batteries had lost their capacity. Not surprising as they were were about 10 years old. At voltages over 14 volts, they were also acting like a resister (leaking electrons across the plates) and drawing down the voltage of the alternator to 14 volts. The new batteries which did not leak electrons, allowed the alternator to reach its full charging voltage.

That is why I am always suspicious when I see less than 14.2 charging volts on a 12 volt lead acid battery that is supposed to be fully charged.
 
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