Hi all,

My car will not start after being fully charged and then sat for a week. Connected ammeter and the constant drain on the battery is 0.11-0.12A... is this normal? 

Has anyone had issues on a Mk8 Fiestas with poor batteries, or with battery drains? 

Thanks. 

Yes, there are several threads on the forum on this subject (the Mk 4 Focus seems to have similar issues). Link to one thread below, but there are several on this and related subjects such as battery chargers etc, if you have a good look around.

 

 

2 hours ago, r44wko said:

Hi all,

My car will not start after being fully charged and then sat for a week. Connected ammeter and the constant drain on the battery is 0.11-0.12A... is this normal? 

Has anyone had issues on a Mk8 Fiestas with poor batteries, or with battery drains? 

Thanks. 

Hi Sam, as Roger has said, sadly there are a bunch of threads from MK8 owners (me included) who have experienced issues with the battery being dead after being left a week or so.

Not sure if that amount of mA drain is normal (although it doesn't sound like it should be enough to kill a 60AH battery in a week).

I've taken to going for a 45-60 minute decent run with my Fiesta every 4-5 days to try and keep the battery alive.

2 hours ago, tef89 said:

I've taken to going for a 45-60 minute decent run with my Fiesta every 4-5 days to try and keep the battery alive.

I've been checking mine with the voltmeter regularly during lockdown and had the charger on a couple of times.

I don't know if this is just a Ford issue, or how widespread  - I've asked friends who have bought other makes fairly recently and no-one reports any problems. Other friends have had a Mk 8 Titanium from launch, so similar vintage to Gary's, again with no problems reported. Like me they're all retired and doing pretty low mileages even pre-corona, so that's not necessarily a factor.

Also been monitoring my Mk 8 battery over the past three weeks. I have been doing a 34 mile run on a monday doing 60 mph in fourth gear to give me 3000 rpm and the battery during the whole run was charging at 14.7 to 14.8 volts. After the runs I took a voltage reading about 3 hours after the run and again 7 days later before the next run and the results were.

After run           12.44 volts          12.40 volts          12.48  volts

After 7 days      12.05 volts          12.09 volts           Due in 6 days at moment 12.27 volts

Son has a Mk 8 and he didn't run his for 2 weeks and his battery was flat. Has now got the dreaded 'steering lock malfunction'. Hopefully a recharge and BCU disconnect/reconnect will cure it.

That's interesting, John. Not having had a battery problem for many years until now, I'd been mistakenly assuming that if a 12v battery showed 12v it was ok, but being prompted by the various threads on here to check, I rediscovered that a fully charged battery should show 12.7-12.8v.

I was checking the voltage on mine even before lockdown, and getting similar figures to your post above. The only times I've seen 12.8 is after having a smart charger on the car for its full cycle. It does make you question whether the charging sytem in the car is up to the job, even under normal circumstances.

 

I think modern batteries hold charge differently...  My Mk3 Focus regularly dropped to 11.8v but still started the car absolutely fine!  Like you, I was also under the impression that anything below about 12.6 was bad but it doesn't seem to be...  

24 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

My Mk3 Focus regularly dropped to 11.8v but still started the car absolutely fine!  

At my last service end of Feb, the battery was 11.96v and was flagged up as an advisory. Never had a problem starting though (yet, cross everything!) unlike others.

Don't know what would have happened in the current situation without giving it the occasional top up with the charger, though - don't want to experiment by leaving it and finding out the hard way!

14 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

At my last service end of Feb, the battery was 11.96v and was flagged up as an advisory. Never had a problem starting though (yet, cross everything!) unlike others.

Don't know what would have happened in the current situation without giving it the occasional top up with the charger, though - don't want to experiment by leaving it and finding out the hard way!

On the plus side, we can now make 'non essential' drives to open spaces so that should help keep batteries in good order!  

(Only those of in England though, the rest of you have to stay home for now!)

Also noticed that the voltage drop per day decreases the nearer it gets to 12 volts. Day after topup run the drop is around 0.25 volts. Day 5 to 6 is around 0.03 volts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following is typical of info I was finding on battery voltage which made me nervous:

 

Voltage Guide For 12v Batteries A guide for 12v Car, Commercial, Leisure and Marine batteries
A 12 Volt battery contains 6 x 2 volt cells but 12v is the nominal voltage. The actual open circuit voltage of a 100% charged battery is between 12.70v and 12.80v because each cell is approximately 2.13v
OCV
12.60v to 12.80v*		Fully charged battery, perfect for fitment to vehicle.
12.35v to 12.60v*		Acceptable charged battery, acceptable for fitment
12.00v to 12.35v*		Seriously discharged battery, unacceptable for fitment to vehicle. Action needed - recharge urgently. However, this may not fully recover the battery *
10.60v to 12.00v*		Over used battery, unacceptable for fitment to vehicle. Action needed - recharge urgently However, this may not fully recover the battery *
10.00v to 10.59v*		Deeply discharged battery or potential faulty cell. Action needed - recharge urgently However, this may not filly recover the battery *
Less then 10.00v*		Deeply discharged battery, unacceptable for fitment to vehicle Action needed - recharge urgently However, this may not fully recover the battery *
	Notes
	Good Battery.
	A flat battery is discharged and NOT a manufacture or warranty battery. Reasons why a battery is 'flat': Over discharged Incorrect charging Malfunction of the charging system Non-approved application Irregular / seasonal use of the vehicle.
	Probably deeply discharged or potentially a faulty cell caused by either old age, over use, miss-usage or manufacturing defect.

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The MK 4 will start if the battery gets to 11.6v.

I bought one of these that simply plugs into the car cigarette lighter and plug it in before I start the car and take note of the reading.

I’m having the same problem 2019 Focus the battery has gone flat twice had to call the AA out he tests the battery and says there is nothing wrong with it just never holds it charge even thought about buying a new battery but I don’t know if that would affect the warranty or not 

Parked ours up two days ago with a reading of 12.9. Got in it today and its reading 12.1. Taken it for a 30 minute run and its back up to 12.8.

 

32 minutes ago, Wino said:

Parked ours up two days ago with a reading of 12.9. Got in it today and its reading 12.1. Taken it for a 30 minute run and its back up to 12.8.

 

That's good! Just out of interest, was that reading on a test meter or the plug in? I've got a couple of the plug in devices just to use for a quick check and I've found they over-read compared to the multimeter reading.

 

5 hours ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

That's good! Just out of interest, was that reading on a test meter or the plug in? I've got a couple of the plug in devices just to use for a quick check and I've found they over-read compared to the multimeter reading.

Just on the plug in so I can keep a rough check on the battery. 

It does say in the instructions on the plug in that it can take 10 to 15 mins to give a accurate reading once you have driven the car.

I tend to use it as a guide from when I last used the car and hopefully spot any excessive drain but its really guess work on my part as I don't know how much the battery should drain overnight or after a couple of days but since I've used it it tends to drop around 0.6 after being stood for 2 days. 

5 minutes ago, Wino said:

Just on the plug in so I can keep a rough check on the battery. 

Yeah, I do the same, then get the meter on it every couple of weeks!😀