New battery now faulty?

[Jay_A]

Fitted a new halfords battery in my wife's RB182 two weeks ago due to starting issues / battery wouldn't charge. All has been fine up until today where the car wouldn't start again (engine would turn over though).

Finally got it going and thought I'd plug my battery charger in, only to discover that it was almost flat like the old one.

Whether this is correct or not, but I tested the alternator by running the engine, then disconnecting the negative wire from the battery. All seemed ok and the engine continued to run. This tells me that the alternator is ok from what I've read.

So, my question is, does this happen where new batteries fail so quickly, or could it be something else that I'm missing here?

Any help appreciated.

 

[jenic]

Could be something else draining the battery.

Good luck

 

[keirravn]

free battery and alternator check at kwik fit is what i would start with, failing that then ye something must be draining it, kwik fit will tell you if its charging or not.

rare chance the battery has a fault, rule out the rest then take it back maybe? inlikely theres anything wrong with it though as it would have showed up early.

if the car was turning over no bother than its probably something other than the battert though, spark plugs, coilpack, fueling problem etc

 

[Jay_A]

Thanks for the replies guys. I took the battery back only to discover it's not faulty, so bought a volt meter to test the battery drain. So...... I'm getting around 14.4v when running the engine with lights on, then it dips around 0.2v when turning on climate control.

Interesting comments about plugs / coil pack, so will have a look tomorrow

 

[Leeshez]

On my mum's Escort years ago this happened and the boot light was stuck on. It could be something like that.