Long story short, I have a small battery kit from Buschur. I charge it in the morning to 100% and go to work (30 min drive )

When I get to work, If I put the charger back on the battery, it's at 50-60% charged again. Same thing when I park it at night... if I charge it to 100%... it's back down to 50-60% in the morning. Now maybe this is normal for the battery not to be at 100% or close to it, but I thought the alternator charged it while I drove and it should be pretty close to fully charged always.

Here's the kicker, now I know the injectors get there pulse width numbers straight off the battery voltage and I can see my afr's going leaner by the ends of my trips (voltage dropping some ) so I had to change my battery voltage compensations at the 12v spot in my tune to account for it.

My predicament is that I want to say... Oh it's def the battery in one situation, and I want to say it's def the alternator in the other. Help. Also I don't want to unplug the battery terminals while it's running to find out.... my car is sensitive enough and doesn't need any help risking failures.

 

When my alterntor fail, the warning indicator came on and stayed lit. Do you remember if the battery looking indicator on the dash flash or anything? The battery goes on standby once the car is running, unless the alternator is bad. You can use a volt meter to check; battery should be 12V non-running, and 14ish when the car is running. Also look for anything that may be causing parasidic draw..

Also, are you using a deep cycle charger? A regular charger doesn't work on those drycell Oddyssey batteries very well.

 

voltage stays pretty spot on, just the capacity goes down and doesn't charge over 60% without using the charger. I guess that's more or less my question too... is the battery suppose to get back up to 100% charged by the alternator or is 50-60% normal? Battery light never comes on, car just starts acting like it wants to die but never does after 30-45 mins of driving. Idle will dip, goes a bit rich for a few seconds then will come back. Am using a drycell type charger, only takes about 5-10 mins to charge back to 100% from 50% with it, so I assume it works good?

 

When you have a chance, take your battery off the car, charge it to 100% and then just let it sit for a couple of hours while disconnected from the car. Battery stays charged, you probably need an alternator.

If it doesn't stay charged, you probably need a new battery.

 

Of course that's what I need to do, how stupid of me lol. Don't really know why I couldn't think of that, but thanks STM.

 

It happens.... even to the best of us.
Good luck. Let me know if you need one, we have them ready to ship.

 

Ended up being the battery.... defective says Enersys and they are sending me a replacement. Can't speak any more highly of a company, what GREAT customer service.

 

 

STM one of the BEST !!!!!!!

 

Woah. Nice!
Congrats!!!

 

Cant beat good customer service, now i know where to get my batteries from lol glad op found the issue, ill do that test first next time i have battery issues lol