Hi,

I have a 1998 S70 sedan (non-turbo). It has around 140K miles on it.

Whenever my Volvo is left three or more days without starting it, the car will not start and the battery is completely dead. After recharging the battery, the car starts fine.

The last time it died, we had left the car in an airport parking lot for a week. The parking attendant jumped the car, and we started driving home. We stopped by our friend's house on the way, after driving about 20 minutes at highway speed. Turned the car off (thinking the battery would be fully charged) and when we came back out, it was dead. We got it started up again and made it home.

The battery is four years, but it checks out okay when I brought it to the shop several months ago.

After the airport incident, my boyfriend disconnected the battery and we left the car for four days. After reconnecting the battery, the car starts fine. He is now fairly confident the battery is not the problem. Next he disconnected the ground cable from the battery and measured 12 volts between the disconnected battery cable and the disconnected battery post. He tried to isolate what is draining the battery by systematically removing fuses. Removed all fuses without seeing much difference in the voltage. Is this normal? Or does this prove something in the car is abnormally draining the battery?

Note, several years ago when my car was not being parked in the garage, mice would make nests in the car engine. Is it possible they chewed some wires, which slowly causes a drain on the battery?

Any ideas on what we should check next?

I just want this car to last until this fall, in which we will be getting a new car to replace it, and not sink a bunch of money into it.

Thank you.

 

3 days is a small drain. Check all lights to make sure they are not being left on. Make sure tu turn trunk light off at the switch on the light, not just closing trunk. I suspect he missed a fuse. Bare wires will usually blow a fuse before draining a battery.
4 years on a battery is all I get, and I don't buy cheap batteries. Modern cars are tough on them, so are extreme climates.

 

Grrrrrrr... Lost a long reply typed on my phone. Four years is plenty for a battery, get a new one.

 

Hi, thanks for your replies.

You suggest getting a new battery, even though it was a 7 year battery? I got mine from Les Schwab, 47 XT Xtreme Power battery". Also, I am in the Seattle area, so we don't usually get extreme weather.

Don, we did turn off the light in the trunk, after I thought that it had caused a previous battery drain.

 

The reason battery companies give you a warranty on their battery is so you will come back time and time again to get the pro-rated battery warranty. So, the battery is bad and you can take it back to them and they will be glad to prorate another battery to you.

If you only need a battery for a few more months (God forbid we look out for the next guy), get a cheap one from Wal-Mart or somewhere. Heck, I just got one from a junk/salvage/recycle yard for $25 (it was a $285 Volvo battery).

Those battery testing places really do not do a good job at testing batteries. I had one tested about a month or so ago, they said it was good, charged it up, died on me 15 minutes into use. Took it back the next day and the new attendant said it was dead and no good. They told a friend that their battery was good and the alternator was bad. Almost told her a $425 alternator. Battery charge was low. Charged the battery up real good and it hasn't given her a problem in 7 months.

Your boyfriend did a good job testing for a drain, but the battery is at the end of it's life. It actually takes about 3 hours of driving time to fully charge a battery. Short trips, under 15 minutes per trip hours apart is tough on any battery is will cause it to die if not driven daily. All cars have a slight drain on them because these cars have things that run off the battery even when the car is not driven. The best way to check the battery is under load, like check the voltage while cranking the starter. It may read 12.4 volts static but may drop to 6.8 volts while cranking, which is not enough to start the car.

 

I had a similar experience with our old 850, something kept draining the battery after a few days of rest. This process of completely draining the battery over and over will actually warp the inner lead plates and cause a short in the circuit inside thus shortening its life. Anyways I made a couple of trips to the dealer with this issue and after checking the usual suspects: trunk and glove box lights, they agreed to replace the original battery under the terms of the warranty for free. We were good for a few months may be a year before this battery also started to die. Upon my return to the dealer they checked the wiring harness this time and replaced the cable running from the battery to the starter. I was not convinced of the seemingly untidy solution but that did the trick we never had any issues with dead batteries again. I don’t have the car anymore but I found an old picture showing the new cable (red) clamped to the positive battery post the other end routed to the starter solenoid. Hope this helps.

 

I think the battery to fuse box cable is the one that is most commonly implicated in this problem but they went bad fairly fast. I believe there was even a Volvo service bulletin outlining some problem in this area but that was 10 years ago or so on my car. Still think the battery is bad.

 

Your bf is correct; based on highlited test, battery is NOT the issue. Your car has a parasitic draw (drain) on the battery or the charging system has an issue. Regarding the parasitic draw, most likely suspects are glove box and/or trunk lite. Boxpin did a nice writeup on how to test for parasitic draw. Ck out this post:
https://volvoforums.com/forum/volvo-...g-101-a-42655/

BTW: my current battery in my car came with the vehicle when i bought it used over 8 years ago; still cranking strong...

 

Wow, that's the longest battery life I have ever heard of. Maybe my Volvo battery will last long, especially since I drive it daily.

During my 2,000 mile road trip I realized that my system was charging at 12.8v instead of the usual 13.4v. Not worried about it just something I noticed after about 7 hours of driving.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
On the other note, I think I found the easiest way to figure out if your glove box light is on:

1. Remove the glove box.
2. Remove the light cover (it just pulls off)
3. Remove the lower kick panel on the passenger side
4. Close the glove box and wait till night fall.

That light will shine through to the floor, out the crack of the door and just about everywhere else.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I discovered the process by accident. Removed a cabin fan and had to drive somewhere before I put it back together. Looked over that direction and seen the light on even though the box door was closed.

 

Tire and battery warranties are a joke, dont believe the hype!
Also you may want to check the electrolyte levels in the battery. If low, top off with some distilled water. Sounds like your BF is mechanically inclined, have him check the electrolyte with a hydrometer to measure the acid:water ratio.

 

Hey, thanks everyone for your tips and ideas. I haven't checked to see if the light in the glove box stays on. Instead of removing the glove box (which sounds hard) I might just stick my little video camera and put it on record. If the light is on, it should show up on the camera.

Since I had the initial problem (about 1 1/2 weeks ago), my car has had no problem with the battery. But, it is being driven every day (even though it is less than 10 miles per day). It hasn't had any problem starting up.

Thank you.

 

Hi guys. I checked the glove box, and the light is not staying on. This morning after I arrived to work, I put my i-phone on video, put it in the glove box, and on the video, you can see the light go out.

So, if I drive it every day, my car and battery are both happy. But, when the weather gets nicer, I am going to be riding my bike to work, and will probably just disconnect the battery.

 

As long as you drive the car for about 2 hours per week it should be ok. If not, disconnecting the battery might not be a bad idea.

 

My friend, I suffered with this problem for a year before I figured out that my alternator was drawing power from the battery, while off. Car would start with a boost , or if I disconnected the battery. I wouldn't believe my mechanic that it was indeed my alternator drawing power OUT of my battery, so I spent a whole year or more looking just like you for a bulb staying on and other things that could cause the car not to start after a day or so of not driving. When he changed my alternator, VOILA!!!!
Also, I changed the battery to a new one before figuring this out because eventually this parasitic draw will damage the battery.
So check your alternator I am telling you from my own annoying experience.



good luck

 

If you check for parasitic draw, as I suggested in post #8 of this thread, you would have found this draw, and when you disconnect the red wire from alt, would have seen it go away. Then you don't have to blindly replace parts until your problem goes away.

Yes, the alternator can draw power from the battery; what happened was one (or more) of the 6 diodes in the rectifier pack shorted (at least partially) causing the draw. Would have seen reduced charging but maybe not enough to turn on the Battery light on the cluster.

BTW the rectifier diode pack is part of alt brush holder part; a sub-component of the alt that usually can be bought and replaced separately. Nine times out of ten the alt fails because either the brushes wear out or a diode in the rectifier fails.

 

This is how I would handle a battery disconnect:
Battery Disconnect Switch

 

Thank you everyone for your ideas. This has been such a great forum (and very active group). My BF still needs to follow the instructions on the "basic battery drain troubleshooting - 101", that "gdog" suggested. It has been added to his "Honey-Do" list

I have decided I will go out and buy the battery disconnect switch that "rspi" suggested. It's only around $10 and my local NAPA has two in stock.

Again, thank you very much.

 

Tech I have the same battery prob. I even replaced it. Still dead. I do have a service alarm message come up. Does that have to be taken to dealer? Or can it go anywhere? Thanks help I'm stranded

 

I have a 2008 S40 and a 2011 S40 T5. BOTH Volvo brand batteries failed within 2 years. Replaced 2008 battery with Costco battery - still working after 2 years. Tried to do the same with the 2011 - Costco locally stopped carrying Group 91/94 batteries so had to bite the bullet and buy a $180 battery from local NAPA store. 2011 battery was a little low on electrolyte and after adding distilled water and charging with my "high tech" CTEK charger, open-circuit voltage was just over 13 volts since seemed ok but I noticed that gas bubbles were coming out of every cell except the second one. Took a few strips of steel wire and checked voltage directly in the cells with my multimeter - the cell without gas bubbles was only 1.8 higher than the first cell (which read about 2.2). All other cells read around 2.2. So, it looks like the low electrolyte level in the second cell caused an irreversible failure. Read about some folks adding Epsom salt solution or a battery "restoring" powder and this would be an interesting experiment to see if that $250 Volvo battery can be saved. But, don't have a load tester and not a lot free time to play with it. Anyone else out there have such bad luck with Volvo OEM batteries? Both of mine were "Made in Germany".

 

Batteries that get repeatedly flattened do not have a long lifespan.

Quite some time back I read an article in a motor magazine from a battery manufacturer stating that modern vehicle batteries can really only withstand 2 full discharges without significant detriment. After that, whilst you can continue to recharge them as required the cranking capacity becomes steadily less and it becomes more and more unreliable.
Volvo's rely extra heavily on their electronics and therefore need batteries with high CCA rating accordingly. (ideally 530 CCA upwards.) hence the higher cost.