Flat battery

[Jack]

The Nova's battery is flat as the proverbial pancake, so flat in fact it won't even charge. Its a Bosch silver jobbie, and whilst looking at replacements I noticed Halfords (where I bought it from) give a 5 year guarantee with them. Its deffo younger than 5 years as the car hasn't had the V6 in that long - the old battery from the XE didn't have enough power to run the 3.0!

Is it even worth trying to recharge it now its this badly kaput? My charger refuses to do it as it says its too flat, but my dad's isn't that clever so might be able to.

Alternatively whats the chances of me being able to take it back to Halfords (assuming I can find the receipt lol)? Will they tell me to bog off as its been sat for a while? I'd go up there and ask but Cribbs on a Saturday afternoon is a no go zone lol

Don't really want to spend out £££ on a new battery when I probably won't be keeping the car long enough to warrant spending that much.

[Novasport]

Take it back, they cannot prove it's not been used. For all they know it could be doing 20000 a year. If you do want to charge it, fool the charger with a second battery or booster pack.

[Novasport]

Batteries now are crap, I get through a GM battery every two years on the 888 without fail and that's with using a C-Tek charger conditioner.
The Delco battery in my Sport is 18 years old(I have the receipt to prove) and still going strong. It usually fully charges with the C-tek within 20-30 mins and cranks the Sport over with no fuss when it's been standing a while and difficult to get it going.
Somebody told me the Bosch batteries aren't much cop.

[General Baxter]

i still have my orginal VW one from 1998 and its still working :), saying that, the GM one i have from 1989 is still going lol

[Jack]

Somebody told me the Bosch batteries aren't much cop.
I'm inclined to agree lol The old Varta one we stuck on the XE was good, just a shame it wasn't man enough to run the V6.

Now to see if I can find the receipt... lol

[Novasport]

See if you can get a new AC Delco battery, might last a bit longer if they are as half as decent as the old Freedom's

[mowgli]

jack. a maintenance free battery can take days & days to charge if its flat like that..

when i sold batteries, we would not give out a replacement until we had tried to get a charge into the return. 99% were simply flat..

put it on the thick charger for a while first.it holds charge, put it on the clever one.

[marc69]

I had a bosch silver battery 6 years ago, it only came with a two year warranty, a week after the two years it started not holding charge. I did the battery charger, ran it on a nother car incase it was a fault with the car. It was just rubbish. I then replaced it with a cheap drive tec battery which 4 years later is still going.

Obviously try to charge it for a few days first as hopefully it is just really low but, if yuou do have to take it back, I woudl be tempted to say it has been run as normal.

[mowgli]

i haven't bought a battery in years, my brother is really impatient, and when a vehicle battery goes flat, he decides its scrap & buys new straight away.. then i get to recharge them slowly & properly... my current nova battery is a hd astra diesel one that was taken off the astra 4 years ago....and its got tons of power

[burgo]

To get some charge in to it use some jump leads, if It holds it then your charger should work. Failing that you need a decent charger

[Jack]

Tried jumping it from the cav when Lee was here, pretty much sucked all the electrickery out of that and still refused to start lol

[Benn]

Take it back, it's scrap now. Once a batterys gone fully flat its knackered.

[mowgli]

you are like my brother.

once a battery is fully flat means it needs quite a bit of charging to get it back, like 3-4days

[mowgli]

Tried jumping it from the cav when Lee was here, pretty much sucked all the electrickery out of that and still refused to start lol

you can never jump a car with a totally flat battery, as the juice from the good battery just tries to charge up the flat one.

[Benn]

you are like my brother.

once a battery is fully flat means it needs quite a bit of charging to get it back, like 3-4days

But they never fully hold a charge again... That's from fully flat.

[Mazz]

They are past there best imo once completely flat..I fitted a bit battery kill switch on my Nova for when its in the garage..

[mowgli]

this fully flat thing is an old wives tale most likely put about by people who sell batteries..

[Dave A]

If you can find the receipt Halfords will exchange no probs, no chance if no receipt though! Alternatively if you have a bank statement with the transaction they will take that as proof of purchase too. My Halfords battery has died twice within 2 years and got a new one each time!

[burgo]

Tried jumping it from the cav when Lee was here, pretty much sucked all the electrickery out of that and still refused to start lol

I don't mean try and start it, just leave it hooked up for a while to get a little bit of power in to it

[Benn]

this fully flat thing is an old wives tale most likely put about by people who sell batteries..

If you saw some that come back in to my work you wouldn't say that...

[mowgli]

i used to sell them to farmers, i've seen a fair few hair raisers.. Please tell...

[Novasport]

I had a battery go into melt down on Royston when the car was running. Melted the battery jacket andstunk of acid.

[marc69]

I had a battery melt in the boot of a 1960 morris mini minor (close to the fuel tank). The regulator had packed up, I didn't know this though. Driving the morris, after 100 miles the smell was awful, I looked under the bonnet, nothing wrong.

Drove another 80 miles and I was about to pass out, decided the rocker cover would have to come off so opened the boot for tools.......the smoke and gas pushed me over!

I phoned the AA but being in the highlands they took 3 hours to get a localish garage to phone to see what they could do, they advised to drive 20 miles to them as they would be another 2 hours before they could collect me.

Once I was there, they said they couldn't take me the other 50miles that day as they were so busy (naturally they were all standing around doing nothing), I would have to wait until tomorrow.

Slightly cross, I phoned my dad and explained that the battery was melting, he said overcharging so unplug the altenator. It actually drove me the other 50 miles on the remains of a melted battery. My worst AA experience, but up the very north there is a different attitude. That morris was a fabulous little car though.