Alright for the past month Ive had a problem of keeping my battery with enough charge to even start my car. Ive been driving around my Explorer for the time being while ive been trying everything to trouble shoot this problem. I checked all ground connections and wiring and everything seems fine. I know it's not the starter because once the battery voltage is at its normal 13-14 the car starts right up, anything lower than 11-12 it doesn't. It;s gotten to the point where when I wake up in the morning from the car sitting overnight, the battery has completely drained itself either from I guess a short or just being bad? Apparently the battery is from January of this year and the P/O had the maro sitting for awhile. Most of the time the battery wont even have enough voltage to turn my halo's on. Im going to get a volt meter today but does anyone have any clue as to wth is going on? I looked under the car and the starter had a bunch of oil sludge gunked up on it so could it just use a thorough cleaning? Thanks for any help, sorry for the novel, should be published soon.

 

Have you had the alternator tested?

 

Just replaced the alternator 2 weeks ago, and it tested good on the charger.

Update* Now my battery wont even charge, just says "Fault/FO2" on the charger..

 

Get the battery charged, disconnect a cable overnight, in the am reconnect the cable, if the battery is down then it has to be the battery, if it's still hot then the problem is elsewhere.

 

Didn't see your last post. Take the battery to your local parts or battery store and get it tested for free

 

another thing you can do:

Get a volt meter and test parasitic draw. This will tell you if some outside force is causing the battery to die. Take the negative terminal off, close your doors (Make sure not to open them while doing this, dome light will pop your DMM's fuse). Then do what is illustrated here:


Golden rules is anything between 30-50 Mili Amps of current draw is normal. Anything above that.. well, no buenos. And the setting on DMM while doing this should be DCMA.

Atleast this way you won't be throwing parts at the sitchy-ashun.

 

Sounds like a bad cell. Car batteries won't fully recharge after 3 or so drains.

 

yep i would say the battery is toast. if the same take the battery out of the explorer and put it in the car. if it works normal then its the battery.

 

good time to clean all your connections from the starter to the battery.

 

Cleaned my connections today, cleaned off the starter, cleaned out the terminals (Even though barely anything was there), removed both + and negative, put them back on, and still nothing, just "FO2/Fault" I dont want to have to remove my starter to test it because I know for a fact it still works fine if my battery has enough voltage so that's the last thing I test after my battery. My mom's birthday so I cant run up to autozone to get the battery tested yet and my explorer battery has the top terminals, not the side so I cant do that. Just gotta wait. Im just weirded out because batterys are supposed to last 3-6 years and the P/O got this one in January.. What can cause a battery to go bad in such a short period of time? (If it is the battery)