Woes me... the missus left the boot open on her car and the car was left in the garage without being noticed for a few days. Now the battery is virtually flat. Courtesy lights still come on and door ajar light in the dash... but there's no turnover at all. She did this a couple of months ago and I had to call out the RACV who started the car and told me that the battery was okay...just that it had discharged to almost, not quite, empty.

So please tell me...what should I expect after charging it overnight?

1/I know I may have re-key the security code for the radio.
2/I know that I might have to deal with the trip computer flashing "SW" or "S"

Anything else to look out for?

Anything else to look out for?

Your better half closing the car up correctly in future?

Apart from the radio, if the voltage dropped low enough you may need to press the Mode button to cycle through 'S' (sedan) and 'W' (wagon) and hold it in to select the correct one, then do the same thing for 3.0 or 3.5 litre engine. If this is the case your ECU will have reset, in which it will have lost both the engine's and the gearbox's learned setup. This may be noticed in a faster or slower idle than normal, unusual gear change points and jerky gear changes, and clunky transitions through P,R,N,D etc. Everything will eventually settle as the ECU relearns your driving patterns but there are a few shortcuts that can be taken to speed up the process, do a bit of a search on this forum as I don't recall the process off the top of my head. If your idle is way too fast or slow after reset it could indicate that something is not set up correctly on your throttle body, there are also threads on sorting this out but the process is fiddly and must be done correctly (and from memory it requires analytics scanner to be plugged it so not really a home garage job).

Found the auto re-learn procedure. Been posted a couple of times but I've got it saved on my phone for ease of access lol.
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/rhys_fairall/mitsunewshiftnn8.jpg

Car batteries *really* don't like being discharged beyond maybe 10% for too long (hence deep cycle batteries for bad recharge situations) - so the battery life will have been reduced a bit - if the battery is more than 2 years old - save a few $ and replace it before summer as the heat will one day kill it.

Okay...battery had to be changed. Didn't hold charge. Thank God for the RACV! Bought their bestus unit.

Thanks to all who replied and LOL at MadMax...the missus and I have ...ahem.... "talked"...ahem!

d1ng0d4n: Thanks heaps. I took the car for a spin after the battery change...all seems good...idle, gear-changes, the works.

bb61266: You said it! This battery was about three years old. It was the best one Kmart had at the time...sealed calcium unit. But it's been knocked about a bit. Missus drives the car infrequently and it often sits for long periods and that can't be good for the battery. I am looking into getting a trickle charger but the thing is teaching missus how to disconnect and reconnect it when I am not home. Some women are great at technical stuff. My missus is a good cook and good housekeeper but she's the type that will only use the "on/off" button on the telly remote and the channel change button...all else is a mystery!!

Quick question; without disconnecting the battery can you get back to the initial trip computer screen flashing "SW" or "S" if needed? I know I hit "S" but I'm not sure about the "3.0" and "3.5".

... replace it before summer as the heat will one day kill it.

I know the cold is bad for batteries, but certainly heat should be fine, otherwise they wouldn't mostly be installed in the engine bay?

When my battery died one battery place told me the battery was holding charge it just needed the terminals cleaned so I took the car home cleaned the terminals and went to start it to have it hesitate ..... so I took it up to my local auto leckie. He put some contraption on it and told me yeah it's holding charge alright, then he asked me to start it and he showed me the starting amps or something were meant to be a lot more than the 68 it was showing. From memory it was meant to be around 470 so a new battery was installed.

Thanks to all who replied and LOL at MadMax...the missus and I have ...ahem.... "talked"...ahem!

I am looking into getting a trickle charger but the thing is teaching missus how to disconnect and reconnect it when I am not home.


Gurls and cars . . . grrr . . . don't get me started!

I bought a charger off ebay, 20A with a 5 step down to trickle charge. I've got 3 batteries in storage that occasionally get 24 hours on the charger.
To charge while on the car though requires user input, which the lady of the house isn't likely to do.
Perhaps get a trickle charger and a spare battery, so that the one in the car can be swapped out when needed? (Or swap them over regularly so no one battery sits in the car unused for months?)

PS resetting the trip computer needs a 30 second disconnect, no way around that.

I know the cold is bad for batteries, but certainly heat should be fine, otherwise they wouldn't mostly be installed in the engine bay?

I guess it depends where you live but increased thermo fan use, A/C fan use, cabin fan speeds all demand more power in summer in SE Qld, combine this with heat soak on shut down have killed all the batteries in my cars - ie: not crank on returning to the car due to a dropped cell (ie: warped plates), then again I'm not starting a car at minus zillion degrees here in winter either.

If you do this to a relatively new battery it will most likley survive with a reduced lifespan. AGM batteries are good for cars that are infrequently driven. They have low self-discharge and charge up a lot quicker then normal batteries. I have one in a car that may not get driven for upto 6 weeks and it always has enough power to start the engine and seems to be mostly charged within 30 mins to 1 hour of driving.

As for a trickle charger you will find that the CTEK ones come with a plug with wires to attach to your battery so that all you have to do after using the car is plug it in. You could buy any trickle charger and add a plug somewhere convenient in/on the car (boot, underneath etc).

Gurls and cars . . . grrr . . . don't get me started!

I bought a charger off ebay, 20A with a 5 step down to trickle charge. I've got 3 batteries in storage that occasionally get 24 hours on the charger.
To charge while on the car though requires user input, which the lady of the house isn't likely to do.
Perhaps get a trickle charger and a spare battery, so that the one in the car can be swapped out when needed? (Or swap them over regularly so no one battery sits in the car unused for months?)


PS resetting the trip computer needs a 30 second disconnect, no way around that.

I hear you about "gurls and cars". Thing is she is the "boss" of the good car and whatever I say about it must be wrong. When I ask her to tell me just what it is I've said that's wrong she just sighs, waggles her finger and says..."You're wrong and don't you dare argue with me!" God give me strength!!

Back OT... I went looking for a battery charger today because the RACV guy told me the one I had was crap and didn't have enough voltage coming out of it. So I went to Supercheap and looked at theirs, went to Autobarn and looked at theirs and I finally bought one at, of all places, Bunnings. It's a Projecta 6 stage unit like this:

http://www.projecta.com.au/Products/BatteryChargers/Pro-Charge.aspx#!prettyPhoto[iframes]/0/

Bunnings was actually cheaper than the auto stores. I was tempted to buy the CTEK units (heard they are the bee's-knees) but they were just too expensive. There were a heap of chargers on Ebay but it was hard to work out if they just did Lead-Acid/AGM or Calcium as well. Seeing that I have a new calcium battery, that aspect was important. I'm told you have to have a charger that is designed for calcium batteries.

The CTEK units are over rated and over priced. Projecta chargers are every bit as good and a lot cheaper.

Woes me... the missus left the boot open on her car and the car was left in the garage without being noticed for a few days. Now the battery is virtually flat. Courtesy lights still come on and door ajar light in the dash... but there's no turnover at all. She did this a couple of months ago and I had to call out the RACV who started the car and told me that the battery was okay...just that it had discharged to almost, not quite, empty.

So please tell me...what should I expect after charging it overnight?





1/I know I may have re-key the security code for the radio.
2/I know that I might have to deal with the trip computer flashing "SW" or "S"

Anything else to look out for?

Would there be anything of note, if you didnt select "s" for a sedan? Seeing that its flashing first, would it just auto select it at some point? I know I changed it from 3l to 3.5l... anyway of checking without resetting?

Cheers

Would there be anything of note, if you didnt select "s" for a sedan? Seeing that its flashing first, would it just auto select it at some point? I know I changed it from 3l to 3.5l... anyway of checking without resetting?

Cheers


I think the trip computer's fuel economy and "distance to empty" readings would be out of whack. The computer makes calculations based upon the stored information in its memory. If it thinks it is a 3L or a wagon then you'll get incorrect readings.

I think the trip computer's fuel economy and "distance to empty" readings would be out of whack. The computer makes calculations based upon the stored information in its memory. If it thinks it is a 3L or a wagon then you'll get incorrect readings.

Thanks mate, I think I must have selected it unknowingly, its pretty much as it was before I took the fuse out trying to fix the trunk light... i may reset it again just to check. Car just "relearnt" the gear shifting, dont wanna go through that again lol i know the manual process, just finding a place to do it...

Cheers

Thanks mate, I think I must have selected it unknowingly, its pretty much as it was before I took the fuse out trying to fix the trunk light... i may reset it again just to check. Car just "relearnt" the gear shifting, dont wanna go through that again lol i know the manual process, just finding a place to do it...

Cheers

I deliberately let my car go without power whilst the battery was changed as the auto shift had learned to hang on too long in 3rd (Missus is a lead foot0. When everything was reconnected and I input the radio code (what a pain in the arse that was...I kept putting in the right code and nothing would happen. Finally I hit the "audio" button after inputting the code and the bastard worked! They didn't put that in the handbook!) and the car codes in the trip computer I took the car for a spin. It changed beautifully, idled beautifully...much nicer than before. I must have been lucky, I think. ;)

Its funny learning to drive a new car (new for me anyway)... the old TS would just go from the get go, albeit pretty average lol but the TJ is temperamental to say the least!! I like to head off as soon as i start him up on a cold engine, but absolutely no power till hes warmed up!! Which is a pain. Almost immediately is a right turn into a busy street! I have to wait for a huge gap in traffic to get accross or go the other way around the block first... great car though, I actually enjoy driving again!

Its funny learning to drive a new car (new for me anyway)... the old TS would just go from the get go, albeit pretty average lol but the TJ is temperamental to say the least!! I like to head off as soon as i start him up on a cold engine, but absolutely no power till hes warmed up!! Which is a pain. Almost immediately is a right turn into a busy street! I have to wait for a huge gap in traffic to get accross or go the other way around the block first... great car though, I actually enjoy driving again!

That's a bit odd. My old V6 TS Wagon had a little grunt but you'd have to floor the pedal and/or hit the "power" button on the shift lever to get it going. The two TJs we have, on the other hand, go from 0 to warp factor 9 in a nanosecond! All third gens, in my experience, go like cut snakes. Perhaps yours needs a tune up??

..absolutely no power till hes warmed up!!

That's not right, something's definitely not working correctly if that's the case. My TJ takes off no problems from a cold start, less economical of course but very little power loss. I would suggest that maybe your engine temp sensor is dodgy, when working correctly it tells the ECU the engine's cold, which responds by enriching the mixture (exactly like a choke on a carby engine).

TJ ..... but absolutely no power till hes warmed up!! Which is a pain.

Not normal, something is wrong - basically the TJ is running near "full rich" fuel flow at startup - ie: goes like a drag car except the dozy auto gearbox takes awhile wake up that there is a 2nd gear? so I can sprint out into traffic and wait and wait and then eventually get 2nd gear and avoid a rear ender...

Probably could do with a tune up actually, is due for its 62k service... pretty sure the temp sensor is ok, i can smell the richness, didnt realise it was meant to be that way, i thought that was a problem!! i should probably just harness the power.... i drive like a grandma lol

Seems to stick.in.first when cold, should i give it a bit of stick to help it change up a gear? i tend to trundle along until it changes..? This is my definition of "take it easy on a cold start up"... taking it to easy and too literally?

Cheers lads