575 Battery failure after 2 days -like Jason's!

Sadly I have a battery problem on my 575 very similar to Jason's problems on his thread http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=384063

Please excuse the long post!

About 2 months ago the car was due to go to the dealer for a new windscreen, they were collecting so I went to move it outside and the battery was near completely flat, it had been on a (factory) tender and this had failed, I hadn’t driven it for a week or so and assumed the battery was not in top condition. I fitted a new battery, put it on a tender and 2 days later drove to the dealer whilst visiting New York.

It took about 10 days before the car was ready, dealer reported no problems however when I got it home the drivers seat would not move with all motors dead, I shut the battery off and after some investigation found the fuse for the seat was not correctly fitted, they swore it wasn’t them!, I stupidly powered the car with the fuse out and it triggered the airbag light, I’ve done this before on other cars (the seat occupied sensor is unpowered so it triggers the error). SD2 reset cured this. I don't think any of the above is relevant but all history may be useful

Parked the car and put it on a tender, all seemed OK then I left it a few days without a tender and the battery wouldn’t start the car, jumped it and it started OK, charged the battery, back on a tender and it’s OK but if I leave it off the tender for more than 2 days it won’t start.


I’ve carried out the following checks (with results shown)
Volts
Charged Battery 12.9v
After 1 day 11.91v
After day 2 11.75v and car will not start

Amps
Battery switch off .01a
Switch on, jumps to .8a then after 10 secs .38a, 15 secs .23a, 20 secs .25a

Open door 2.3 spike (F1 pump and window drop) close door 1.5a, after 10 secs drops to .72a then .58a, after switch illumination goes out it drops to .07a, the the trunk light appears to pull about .5a to .7a and is definitely going out.

Remained at .07 for 3 mins plus

Final test was set alarm, immediate draw of 5a then almost immediately dropped to .18a


It seems that the amps drawn is only .07 to .25.It’s a new 74a/hr quality battery so I’m at a bit of a loss as to what is knocking it out, seems whatever did it took out the battery tender too, unless that's taken something out on the car

Any and all ideas gratefully received

 

Thanks David, not tried that, will do tonight

 

Andrew

interesting point, on my way to the dealer after fitting the new battery I had a total power failure just after overtaking somebody the car died, all lights/ dash, engine, gears everything but only for maybe 1 to 2 seconds then came back to life

 

Hi David

Well it looks like the brand new battery is toast, it read 12.3v after a charge last night but only turned the engine for maybe 5 seconds and volts dropped to 7.5, another try and it would not turn over, volts dropped to 6.0. time to try a new battery and check for shorts as per Andrew's post

 

Hi Andrew

Can you point me to the area where your's was rubbing, also if you have the info and the route of the cable

Many thanks

Mark

 

Battery has a dead cell and the supplier has replaced it under warranty, I suspect this is effect rather than cause though so still need to investigate and cure the fault, suspected to be a short somewhere.

 

An update for anybody following or pulling this up in the future. I fitted the new battery and left the alternator main lead disconnected, with batt switch off I was seeing .02a draw, with switch on .07a, refitting the alternator cable made no difference to the values.

I tried all scenarios in terms of car locked, alarm set etc etc and each time the draw dropped to around .07a

Pulling the radio fuse dropped it to .03a so for some reason that is drawing a little current, probably as it has to maintain the code/ mem settings etc?

New battery recorded 12.38v when fitted and 12.66v after a 10min idle (to reset values). after 24 hours battery is showing 12.22v and started the car easily. Will check again tomorrow.

Alternator is giving a good 14.4v

It would be a considerable coincidence that the original battery/ tender failed and was replaced with new and then that partially failed (one cell) within a few days but at the moment it seems that may be the case

 

It may well have affected the first one but it the tender failed too. The tender on the new battery was different and has always worked ok previously so I don't think it's that




Latest new battery is holding up ok, day 2 12.2v car started ok.

 

Day 3 11.98v, Car started OK

if OK tomorrow will put on tender and move on to the next job

 

Thanks for the feedback, I'll have a read. I bought a Varta Silver as they're a premium product alongside Bosch in Europe /UK, indeed Varta came out on top in a German car magazine test I read last Year.

Below are the tech specs for the battery fitted, be interested on your comments on these

thanks
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Hi Stefano, interesting, doesn't appear to be a gel battery (plenty of fluid sloshing about inside !) but understand your dislike of them