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Optima


Simon_CSK

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I bought an Optima battery nearly a year ago for my Discovery. Over the last few weeks it has been loosing power overnight and now will not retain enough charge to start it between starts. I have switched to an older battery I had and have charged the optima out of the car.

The battery is currently sitting after a charge at 12.3V. Is this good or bad? I thought it should be 13.5 volts it sat at. Help and advise appreciated.

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12.3 is a little low - though your volt meter could easily only read +/-5% so it's not absolute.

article-2011october-battery-fuel-guages-

The graph above is for a battery at rest - no current flow and is fairly accurate for a battery in good condition.

Elbekko is right that to determine the health of the battery you need to load it and see how fast the voltage falls. This gives a good guide to the remaining capacity of the battery. As batteries age, the capacity falls (causing the voltage to drop under load faster).

Optima's are great batteries, but they are sensitive to abuse. Mainly over-charging or over discharging. They can often be brought back to life with a 'conditioning charger' such as one of the CTek range. You have to leave it conditioning for a few days to have a decent effect - but they can rescue a knackered battery surprisingly often.

Your Alternator should charge at up to 14.6V. Any higher will damage the battery. Immediately you take it off charge it should show about 13.8V (or more) sinking quickly to 12.8V

Si

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The Disco does have electrical gremlins however having put in my spare battery I have not had any issues and the car had been laid up some days when I use my Range Rover which confirms to me that the battery has issues. Not yet had time to check it out hopefully get some time tomorrow.

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