Alternator

[markchippy]

Hi all. Bought a new battery and did NT need to and now got another alternator which may not need. Its a mk3 mondeo tdci.

battery light hasn't t come on at all to warn me, so when it died and wouldn't jump got new battery and off we go. It lasted 4 days. Green flag came out and alternator only giving 11 volts. Fair enough. I ve already got the alternator and checked every fuse in case. What about any of the relays before we change it. Are there any other fuses or tests to try first

[markchippy]

I don t like being mugged off so my next question is give an honest answer pls people. How important is it to have a silver calcium battery.

[markchippy]

everyone says mondeos have smart charge, hence the calcium battery. I did NT know what I d bought and some knob at battery helpline said lead batteries have calcium in them. wtf. Took it to fords and he said a silver calcium battery wasn't t the be all. So whose right.

[Stoney871]

Ford's need silver calcium batteries as standard lead acid do not work well with the Ford smart charge system.

As for your alternator, did they check the smart charge system< your alternator should put out about 14.4 volts when running, anything lo9wer is nowhere near enough to charge the battery and run the car's systems adequately.

BTW, no need to post multiple messages the same and spread the same message over 3 different posts.

I have tidied and merged your posts to maintain a logical reading order.

[markchippy]

thanks for answering. first things first I don t know what battery was on car when I bought it. Had it 3 months now. Did NT know about calcium batteries til a week ago. So just bought appropriate replacement. Took it to fords before taking it to where I bought battery. He said wasn't t critical. I wish he had said it was. Took it then to shop and they d never heard of calcium batteries! If ford techy said they be sold you wrong sort I d have demanded money back. Its been on the car mate so can t take it back were his words

[BOF]

Hi all. Bought a new battery and did NT need to and now got another alternator which may not need. Its a mk3 mondeo tdci.

Battery light hasn't t come on at all to warn me, so when it died and wouldn't jump got new battery and off we go. It lasted 4 days. Green flag came out and alternator only giving 11 volts. Fair enough. I ve already got the alternator and checked every fuse in case. What about any of the relays before we change it. Are there any other fuses or tests to try first

Well, 11 volts is too low. But, why? Is it the alternator that isn't giving out enough, or is the battery (or something else) putting on too much load? You can't tell from what you've said.

Anyway, if the problem is that the alternator is not putting out enough, it would probably work for a while if you put the battery on charge for, say, 24 hours. But, it wouldn't be all that useful for long, unless the alternator did put out enough to keep the battery topped up.

Oh, and anyway, I'm not sure i understood what was going on here; you seem to have randomly been buying parts when nothing had failed, but was about to, but was about to. This is odd.

I don t like being mugged off so my next question is give an honest answer pls people. How important is it to have a silver calcium battery.

Mugged off? Anyway, if you have the smart charge system and it is working, it will put out more voltage (temporarily) than the battery is happy with. how much this will shorten the life of the battery, I'm not sure, but it will shorten the battery life.

everyone says mondeos have smart charge, hence the calcium battery. I did NT know what I d bought and some knob at battery helpline said lead batteries have calcium in them. wtf. Took it to fords and he said a silver calcium battery wasn't t the be all. So whose right.

I suspect Mk I Mondeo's don't have smart charge, but recent ones certainly do. Probably once you are beyond something like 99 or 00.

You can disable smart charging by pulling the subsidiary plug out of the alternator, and that's probably what i'd do if i knew I had the wrong type of battery, as under those conditions the alternator ought to revert to the old 'dumb' behaviour, by default.

If you 'told' (or filled out the appropriate details on a form) the battery supplier the appropriate details for the application, ie, what car it is for, and they didn't supply the right battery, then it is their problem. If you didn't, then it is your problem.

t Did NT know about calcium batteries til a week ago. So just bought appropriate replacement. Took it to fords before taking it to where I bought battery. He said wasn't t critical. I wish he had said it was. Took it then to shop and they d never heard of calcium batteries! If ford techy said they be sold you wrong sort I d have demanded money back. Its been on the car mate so can t take it back were his words

Err, it seems as if your complaint is that you bought an inappropriate battery. if you bought an appropriate one, there wouldn't be cause for complaint, would there?

You have to understand that Silver Calcium (or even just Calcium) batteries are Lead Acid batteries. Lead is a pretty soft metal, and that, unless something changes it, makes the batteries not very rugged. Earlier Lead Acid had some alloying Antimony which helped, but this was replaced by Calcium, thus making the Calcium battery (which probably should have been called a Lead Calcium battery or something...but wasn't), which was a bit more rugged and can stand a bit more abuse.

Further to that, adding Silver can help the recombination of Hydrogen and Oxygen into water, further increasing the amount of abuse that the battery can take. In fact, this is so effective that part of the charging strategy includes hitting the battery pretty hard with charge, so that the evolved gasses induce turbulence in the fluid. Now I'm not sure how important this is in a moving, vibrating object like a car, which must stir up the fluid to an extent, but you can see in a stationary application that this would be important.