Hello all,

I have a 2013 S60 with a 2 year old battery rated for 6 year life. Recently the car would not start. I jumped it to get it to run and i thought it was just dead from lack of driving for a while. It started ok on it's own once after this but the next time had to be jumped again. After that I plugged if into a battery charger to make sure the battery was fully charged. A few days after getting to full charge it did not start until I jumped it. I charged if to full again and immediately after disconnecting the charger tried to start it but if would not. Once again it started ok with a jump.

I disconnected the positive lead and with a meter read 0.3A with all doors closed except of course the hood. I pulled each fuse in the under hood box except the 60 and 100 A fuses but did not find the source of leak. I've not checked the other fuses yet as I have a question or two

First, a post I saw for an older s60 said that even having the hood open would cause current draw so I am not sure if the 0.3 A I am seeing is due to this. Does anyone know if this is correct for a 2013?

Also, a 0.3A drain does not explain why the battery - which the charger shows as fully charged - will not start the car but the car will start when jumped by either another car or a portable jumper. This is what confuses me and makes me think something else may be going on than just too much parasitic drain.

Ideas anyone? Thanks for any help

 

what's the voltage of the battery? note a battery that's 80% charged will be in the 12.6V range, at 20% it'll slide to 12.2V or so. Have you inspected/cleaned/tightened the terminals for cables and ground connection? any signs of corrosion on the terminals or in the cable (ie bulges or bubbled insulation)? re your hood open - If you have a hood light bulb, pop it out or remove its fuse. to your point, say there's a 5W bulb that turns on with the open hood. 5 W at 12 Volts = .4A which agrees with the comment you read.

 

It is very difficult to check for a drain or parasitic draw on modern cars. If you take fuses in or out, unlock or open a door of trunk, disconnect the battery - modules come on and can take a while to go off - So any checks have to be with all doors and trunk open with the latches in closed position. (there are fuses on the end or under the dash) Preferably testing with an inductive ammeter.

As others have mentioned - what is the voltage in the battery? I would charge the battery and test the static voltage, then with the voltmeter still hooked up - try to start the car. What does the voltage go to when the starter is engaged? Below 10 volts?Does the starter spin the engine over and start? From your description - no it does not. The easiest test is a load test - simulate one with turning the key with the headlamps - wait a minute - does the car start? what's the voltage then? A .3 amp drain on a battery that was just fully charged will not prevent a good battery from delivering the required amps to start the car.

You have a bad battery - yes I understand it's only x years old. Most batteries have a prorated warranty for just that reason, sometimes they go bad. My last bad battery was a Volvo brand battery (Interstate in this part of the US) - it died suddenly after 18 months - but was not covered because it was in the used car when I purchased it!

 

Thanks for the responses.

The battery voltage right now (meaning after having tried to start it and it failed to do so) is only 10.8 V. I don't know what it was after my charger indicated (with a dummy light, not a readout of voltage) that it was fully charged, just prior to trying to start it this last time. In an earlier attempt the batter was over 13 VAC after the charger indicated "full charge" but I don't know how quickly that fell off or if it did.

When trying to start the car does not turn over - there is the repetitive clicking sound that sounds like a dead battery and of course a lot of error messages on teh dash about low batteries, immobilizer turned on, etc. which I take to mean too low of a voltage for the modules to work correctly.

No sign of corrosion on the leads - the car is garage kept and has less than 40.000 miles on it and everything under the hood looks great.

The charger itself has worked successfully on batteries on two other cars recently.

Just now I have reconnected the charger (with the positive lead to the battery still disconnected) and will wait until it is charged and then check the voltage again before reconnecting the lead and trying to start the car. I'll report back what the voltage is at the end of this charge and after trying to start the car again.

Interestingly my battery is also in Interstate. I hope a bad battery is all it is as that would be a cheap fix.

Thanks again.

 

You have a dead cell or probably a mechanical problem inside the battery (a bad connection)

Most of the Interstate batteries I used to sell had a 2 year free replacement warranty, and prorated after that. If you don't have a receipt there is a manufacturing date code stamped in the battery case.

 

When you turn it off do you hold the power button to turn off the infotainment system or leave it on and then it's automatically on when you start the car? My S60 used to always say low battery when I did that. Now that I always turn it off it never says low battery. Leave it off for a few days while you drive and then always turn it off when the cars off. You can try testing it to see how much it's draining with the ignition on and the infotainment on. Supposedly the Sirius radio drains the battery and even if you don't have Sirius it will still drain because it's always searching for signal.

 

Thanks again for the responses. As an update I left the positive lead disconnected and charged the battery to full overnight. Immediately after charging - so with the charger disconnected and also the positive lead disconnected - I was reading over 13 V. This quickly (in a few minutes) dropped to about 12.6 V and then over the next 4 hours or so down to 11 V where it is now. I can't see any way this would drain externally with only the ground lead attached so tend to agree it is the battery. This is a 6 year interstate battery that has non-prorated warranty for 2.5 years so thankfully I can get a new one for free if this is the issue. I'll take it to the mechanic I bought it from tomorrow and should be able to report back by Thursday one way or the other.

Regarding the Sirius draining issue - I saw in my searching on this topic that this has been an issue for some (I think there was even a class action suit). We have not been pressing and holding the power button to turn this fully off when we leave the car but I assume this is not what is causing my problem since the car is a 2013 and we've not had a problem like this until a few weeks ago. I aasume the Sirius issue would ahve been around from day 1 (?). Having the battery lose charge so quickly when the positive lead is not connected also tends to say this is not the issue.

Thanks again.

 

Just got back from the mechanic and it was a dead battery. Replacement battery was free (30 month 100% replacement on that specific battery) so I just need to put it back in and hopefully good to go. That 0.3 A drain threw me off it appears - must have been something that had not fully shut down when I tested it.

Thanks for the responses.