poor starting

Hi everyone

We purchased our c3 about 6 months ago, no problems at all until the cold snap before Christmas, car was dead as a door nail, nothing at all.
So we jump started the car and took it to a motor parts shop where they tested the battery and as we thought it was dead.

We replaced the battery, couple of weeks later it's done it again, so we took the battery back replaced it, and its happened again !!

But now im feeling like it's the starter thats jamming on near fire up, as it turns then draws the power to a dead state.

On attachment of jump leads to a spare battery it fires straight up? strange scenario.

Help would be much appreciated. we have checked all the connections and everything feels nice and tight.
Regards

Martin

Hi Martin,

martinwf5 wrote:We replaced the battery, couple of weeks later it's done it again, so we took the battery back replaced it, and its happened again !!

Your battery keeps going flat?

martinwf5 wrote:Help would be much appreciated. we have checked all the connections and everything feels nice and tight.

I would check the alternator is delivering enough power to charge the battery.

martinwf5 wrote:On attachment of jump leads to a spare battery it fires straight up? strange scenario.

Not really strange if your alternator is not recharging the battery on the car.

True, i didn't really think of the alternator i will check tomorrow, i guess the warning lamp doesn't really have to show up to be a fault if it's undercharging?

martinwf5 wrote: i guess the warning lamp doesn't really have to show up to be a fault if it's undercharging?

I wouldn't rely on the light, you can't beat measuring with a Multimeter - from here, cheap enough

It would be interesting to see the readings you get on load, off load, high RPM, tickover etc

If the alternator output is good, that is, sufficient to charge, without overcharging the battery, your next step could be looking for a drain on the battery. Thinking of this, the question has to be asked - have you fitted a new radio recently?

Battery Drain topic https://citroenc3owners.com/audio-citroe ... t1280.html

Visited a garage on the way home, and voltage is 14.32 tickover, and when turned off drops to 12.10 and draining, so it looks like i have a drain.

The radio is standard, as is the car no after market modifications.

Where would i start looking please?

martinwf5 wrote:Where would i start looking please?

Start by isolating circuits (pulling fuses) while monitoring the drain.

There are links to all the fused protected circuits here
https://citroenc3owners.com/citroen-c3-t ... -t129.html

So once you have found the fuse that stops the drain, you can translate this to a circuit and then start disconnecting individual devices.

martinwf5 wrote:The radio is standard, as is the car no after market modifications.

Oh well, it was worth asking anyway.


This topic shows measuring the battery drain with the meter set to mA, in series with the battery. Its got some reference value for standby current draw too.
https://citroenc3owners.com/audio-citroe ... t1280.html

fuses 11,6,5 all have an effect on the voltage , or am i doing something wrong?

the voltage stops dropping when all three are removed, obviously engine off, keys out,

once all three are removed the voltage on the meter starts to rise above 12.45 when all three are in just drains without stopping even after ten minutes.

Alternator is charging at 14.32 on tickover.

Regards

Martin

martinwf5 wrote:fuses 11,6,5 all have an effect on the voltage , or am i doing something wrong?

Its Sounds good to me.

I would look at current draw, rather than voltage drop, but you are finding a change which is what you are looking for.

Next step is to identify what those fuses protect....

https://citroenc3owners.com/citroen-c3-t ... -t129.html


Which can give you an idea on what part of the car is draining the battery.

car has been in garage for 4 days for repair, they have reset the ecu, still no luck with the non starting issue, so now they have re programmed the ecu, and everything seems to be fine,