Battery tender for agm battery via jump posts advised?

[wpoll]

Originally Posted by omodos

Indeed, I will leave it a bit longer, issue is I have trust issues, really darn hard to find someone here I can trust...

I understand that well enough. It's why I do all my own maint...

Originally Posted by omodos

... A low power issue I had, hit the gas and very low power, another mechanic said leave it here all day(I didn't) went to a mechanic who knew wifes uncle....he told me let me take a quick look...fixed it in 1 min, was the turbo wastegate tube had come loose....he also told me if you had taken it elsewhere they would have skinned you (no doubt he probably does it to others though )

Close call there!

I've heard others mention this (vacuum) tube coming off and causing low power. Not sure how it gets loose; they are on pretty tight. BTW, the tube you refer to is not for a waste gate - our cars don't have a waste gate. Instead they use a variable geometry turbo (VGT) - one that uses a vacuum actuator to control small vanes that vary the exhaust gases through the turbine, which in turn varies the boost. The reason they have low power when the vacuum line comes off is that the turbo is left stuck in one boost level, with no boost control. And usually minimal boost...

[omodos]

Close call there!

I've heard others mention this (vacuum) tube coming off and causing low power. Not sure how it gets loose; they are on pretty tight. BTW, the tube you refer to is not for a waste gate - our cars don't have a waste gate. Instead they use a variable geometry turbo (VGT) - one that uses a vacuum actuator to control small vanes that vary the exhaust gases through the turbine, which in turn varies the boost. The reason they have low power when the vacuum line comes off is that the turbo is left stuck in one boost level, with no boost control. And usually minimal boost... [/QUOTE]



Man you are well clued up on the nomenclature of all the the x5 guts eh? no idea how the tube could have come off as it has not come off since....all I can say is if i could I would do all i could myself, but usually ends up in shouting at all and sundry when things start to go pear shaped...as usually got concerned family members making genuine inquiries on my well being......anyhow Mr.C is a good mechanic thus far has been spot on, he has done wonders with wifes e46 (saved me a bucket as wife was nagging me for a new car!) and with the X5 he has been great too...


Feeling a bit bad cos he gave me quotes for a denso starter brand new and a new battery and already told him wold source battery on me own, starter I can get remy one for half the price of the denso....so not sure if he will be happy with me dropping off parts to him IF i go down starter replace route.....


Flip side to the dodgy mechanics is I have been to places to fix shoddy work of other mechanics, and where it has been quick jobs, they do not want money! AIR FILTER replaced 20mins, boss of garage said nope go away when i asked how much, i insisted, he said ok then get em a cup of coffee.....so I coughed up some euros that I thought was fair compensation for their effort with no problem.....

[wpoll]

Originally Posted by omodos

... AIR FILTER replaced 20mins, boss of garage said nope go away when i asked how much, i insisted, he said ok then get em a cup of coffee.....so I coughed up some euros that I thought was fair compensation for their effort with no problem.....

Fantastic service. And quite possibly a world record for changing an air filter in a 3.0d E53!

https://youtu.be/-LXBlUlgTjo

[omodos]

World record hahah irony of it is one of the collegues of lad who swapped out air filter passed by and made a joking remark to him about time he was taking....he honestly did it 20mins...i was tempted to video it but felt awkward....as for darn starter , midday when i started X5 it started nicely....didn't record it though. Under normal circumstances i would be over the moon with this , but as mentioned in the past there were a few instances where the start was close to inlaws diesel crv...very fast....and this only happened when i had close to a no start situations ....allowed starter to turn over quite a bit, key back to 0 and then on and it was lightning fast...so this is the standard i am going by.and this has happened more than once its as if keeping key to on and allowing starter to be engaged longer then results in a fast start...even after turning car of and on again after a few hours....alas doesnt last.

[omodos]

Ok fellow X5 drivers, not sure I should be called that, can someone tell me all things in order (good alternator no parasitic draw and maybeeee starter being ok) does having the following driving style contribute to why I was getting laboured starts in the past?



morning, Drive 1.5 miles to office (fairly quick run highway speed) stop leave car in parking lot.



6 hours later start drive another 3.5miles to pick up little one without turning off engine.


then whole thing next day too



In total 5 miles give or take per day but split into 2 runs....and during every other weekend may do say 10-20 miles

[wpoll]

Originally Posted by omodos

Ok fellow X5 drivers, not sure I should be called that, can someone tell me all things in order (good alternator no parasitic draw and maybeeee starter being ok) does having the following driving style contribute to why I was getting laboured starts in the past?



morning, Drive 1.5 miles to office (fairly quick run highway speed) stop leave car in parking lot.



6 hours later start drive another 3.5miles to pick up little one without turning off engine.


then whole thing next day too



In total 5 miles give or take per day but split into 2 runs....and during every other weekend may do say 10-20 miles

Short answer - yes. A week of very short runs like this will leave your battery gasping for a charge.

My drive to work is 10km (6miles) and my engine barely gets up to full temp, esp. in winter. 10km home again each day gives me 100km per week with 10 starts per week. Actually it's more, but you get the idea.

That works out to one start per 10km (oddly!) and that's not enough driven distance per start to keep the battery fully charged. By Friday, I'm seeing the terminal voltage drop a lot when I start the car (as indicated by the DSC 4x4 lamp lighting when I turn the car over). I don't know what driven distance is required to recover from a start but it's probably more like 20-30km per start.

Your driving cycle is a similar daily distance to mine, so I'm pretty sure you'll see the battery being depleted by the end of the week.

In the winter, when I run headlights, rear window defrost and heaters etc. everyday I trickle-charge the battery every weekend.

[omodos]

Ok wpoll ta again, I will do my best to do the lighter socket test over the weekend and see where I stand on starter. As for 4x4 message rarely have got this but as you say when I did was due to low battery....had it one summer on a long trip for my standards, aircon on, radio on even headlights on during the day due to the low low visiblilty caused by dust storm, also got injector failure that day and the dsc 4x4 lucky i was literally 1 min from home.....but all gone when i recharged


Just to clarify the bosch 100ah i had in since dec 2013 the first year never noticed any issue per say (start tad slow but i was none the wiser as I had never heard to spin any faster ever), december 2014 and when temps dropped it got laboured to start ever since then on and off have been using the ctek to keep it going this year being the point of no return as I am sure it has lost it reserve capacity and needed more and more top ups via ctek charger to actually start car.



Replacement is faring well to be honest but I will probably degrade that too if I don't drive more (or charge it once a week or month) so gotta get off my posterior and arrange to install comfort clips of the ctek at the engine bay jump points so I do less and less opening of the engine (been hearing horror stories of cable snapping or plastic clip and people are not able to open without doing major damage)


PS temp is 19c , lowest temps we get is about 5c and that last about 1week a year (apart from the mountain region where it actually snows but anytime been up there was fine)

[omodos]

Originally Posted by wpoll

Short answer - yes. A week of very short runs like this will leave your battery gasping for a charge.

My drive to work is 10km (6miles) and my engine barely gets up to full temp, esp. in winter. 10km home again each day gives me 100km per week with 10 starts per week. Actually it's more, but you get the idea.

That works out to one start per 10km (oddly!) and that's not enough driven distance per start to keep the battery fully charged. By Friday, I'm seeing the terminal voltage drop a lot when I start the car (as indicated by the DSC 4x4 lamp lighting when I turn the car over). I don't know what driven distance is required to recover from a start but it's probably more like 20-30km per start.

Your driving cycle is a similar daily distance to mine, so I'm pretty sure you'll see the battery being depleted by the end of the week.

In the winter, when I run headlights, rear window defrost and heaters etc. everyday I trickle-charge the battery every weekend.

@wpoll not tried to test yet....been manic, on a side note I had a solar trickle charger and took in out to see what V is showed was showing 14v in the shade and 22v in the sun.....22v doesn't sound right

[wpoll]

Originally Posted by omodos

@wpoll not tried to test yet....been manic, on a side note I had a solar trickle charger and took in out to see what V is showed was showing 14v in the shade and 22v in the sun.....22v doesn't sound right

If you are measuring the output voltage with no load, it can read very high. It won't read that high under load....

[omodos]

Originally Posted by wpoll

If you are measuring the output voltage with no load, it can read very high. It won't read that high under load....

Thanks wpoll indeed solar charger was removed from car and i was measuring the volts reading it produced both in the shade and in full sun...its just an additional addon dont expect it to do much regarding my possible starter issue but at least it will give a few amps when car is parked...annoying thing is says it has a diode to stop reverse flow at night but just be safe am thinking of cutting cord from panel to dc lighter socket and putting in some cut off switch in between not sure i can use the type for example you get on a reading lamp....
Ps u r very right my crapt driving style is leading to slower n slower starts...so am in process of connecting the ctek comfort clip to the engine bay lugs and feeding out either via hole near wipers and gutter or via the kidney grill....actually thinking of tin soldering onto the lug nuts the connector..ok mate cheers for feedback