Hello:
We have a 2002 9-3 and have had dead battery problems after listening to the radio in the car with the engine off for only 10 minutes. This has happened several times, and every time we bring it to the dealer, they tell us that the battery load test is fine, and the alternator tests fine also.
Now that cold weather is coming, we are concerned. Any ideas?
Also, the car is run every day for a 60 mile round trip to school. The car is garaged, and is run on trips virtually every day. The belt is tight, and the connections are clean and tight. Thanks in advance.
Yeah, don't listen to the radio with the engine off. If you absolutely have to, get a generator to power your radio. Hope this helps.
Forget that, you should be able to listen to the radio for hours ( all day). I have a 10pack Cd Player and listen for hours when I work in my garage, with the volume cranked. The radio is not killing your battery. I suspect your battery is on the way out. When my 9000 was new, the original battery died suddenly in the first year. Dealer said it had one bad cell. To kill a good battery in 10 minutes, you would have to be pulling some serious current from somewhere. I once left my lights on for 4-5 hours and still had plenty left to start my car. I would take that car to another garage and have it tested again, or borrow another battery to see if makes a difference. Good luck.
Thank you for that. It makes sense, but I wonder why the battery did not show on the load test. Is that a flawed test usually?
FWIW - It's also just possible that one of the battery terminals isn't tightened down properly - happened to me ages ago (with - say it very quietly - a Lancia!). Italian garage theory was that a low level discharge left a corrosion track under the terminal which stopped the starting current.......... Never made any sense from an engineering point of view, but cleaning & tightening the terminal fixed it until the car fell apart...........
How many weeks did that take :)
Normally I would not expect this kind of drain on the battery, however there are some questions that need to be answered. What is the power of the sound system in the car? In other cars the Owner's Manual explicitly warns against running the sound system without the engine running - or the battery could be discharged.
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