[A4] Dead Battery

Wed Feb 3 10:24:28 PST 2010

ironically, my 95 Avant is slowly starting... did not think it was the battery at first, as it seemed to be holding a charge... but brought it to the shop for a few tests and all seemed ok... i.e. alternator, battery, et cetera... went home, and next day, again same slow starting with the clock setting back to zero, loss of programmed radio stations... and various warning lights on, until driving...  thinking now it is a bad cell in the battery...

anyone buy a battery from Costco?

any rec's on a specific battery?

Thanks,

Tony

95 A4 Avant Quartto

98 A4 Quattro

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 09:21:49 -0500
> From: Richard Hurt <rnhurt at gmail.com>
> Subject: [A4] Dead Battery
> To: A4 Mailing List <a4 at audifans.com>
> Message-ID:
> <712ba87c1002020621y10370d8fse66928466fa3f33d at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> 
> Wow, my battery died like I've never seen it before.
> 
> Everything has been fine and dandy, no slow starting, no weird power
> problems, nothing wrong at all. So I stopped on the way to work this
> morning to get a soda and when I come out to the car and turn the key
> everything goes black. No dash lights. No dome light. No nothing. Almost
> like the battery had been removed from the car when I went into the store.
> :) The weird thing is that the after a minute stuff started to come back to
> life. The dome light sorta works again, the dash lights try to come back,
> but there's not enough juice to turn the starter. I suspect the battery and
> get a jump and head off to AutoZone, and stall the car half way there. I've
> been driving a stick for 20 years and can count on one hand the number of
> times I've stalled a car, but apparently nerves make this type of thing more
> common. Grrrr....
> 
> Anyway, does anyone know why a battery would go completely gone and then
> slowly crawl back to life? My volt meter is reading good (15-17volts) and
> the car ran great after I got it started. This hit me completely by
> surprise and there was no warning of a bad battery at all.
> 
> 1998 A4 Q Sport
> --
> Later... ?
> http://KangarooBox.com - We make IT simple!
> Richard ?
> http://MynaStuff.com - Keep track of your stuff.
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 10:46:36 -0500
> From: Richard Hurt <rnhurt at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [A4] Dead Battery
> To: A4 Mailing List <a4 at audifans.com>
> Message-ID:
> <712ba87c1002020746w7231152and92ab41789259410 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> 
> Just got back from AutoZone and it was a bad cell, it had a charge but
> wouldn't hold a load. The great thing is that since I purchased it at
> AutoZone (6 years ago!) it still had some guarantee left and I got a $100
> replacement for $56.
> 
> Right now, I'm *very happy* with AutoZone!
> 
> --
> Later... ?
> http://KangarooBox.com - We make IT simple!
> Richard ?
> http://MynaStuff.com - Keep track of your stuff.
> 
> 
> On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 9:21 AM, Richard Hurt <rnhurt at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Wow, my battery died like I've never seen it before.
> >
> > Everything has been fine and dandy, no slow starting, no weird power
> > problems, nothing wrong at all. So I stopped on the way to work this
> > morning to get a soda and when I come out to the car and turn the key
> > everything goes black. No dash lights. No dome light. No nothing. Almost
> > like the battery had been removed from the car when I went into the store.
> > :) The weird thing is that the after a minute stuff started to come back to
> > life. The dome light sorta works again, the dash lights try to come back,
> > but there's not enough juice to turn the starter. I suspect the battery and
> > get a jump and head off to AutoZone, and stall the car half way there. I've
> > been driving a stick for 20 years and can count on one hand the number of
> > times I've stalled a car, but apparently nerves make this type of thing more
> > common. Grrrr....
> >
> > Anyway, does anyone know why a battery would go completely gone and then
> > slowly crawl back to life? My volt meter is reading good (15-17volts) and
> > the car ran great after I got it started. This hit me completely by
> > surprise and there was no warning of a bad battery at all.
> >
> > 1998 A4 Q Sport
> > --
> > Later... ?
> > http://KangarooBox.com - We make IT simple!
> > Richard ?
> > http://MynaStuff.com - Keep track of your stuff.
> >
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:14:53 -0700
> From: Sean Reifschneider <jafo at jafo.ca>
> Subject: Re: [A4] Dead Battery
> To: Richard Hurt <rnhurt at gmail.com>
> Cc: A4 Mailing List <a4 at audifans.com>
> Message-ID: <4B6879AD.4020305 at jafo.ca>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> 
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> On 02/02/2010 07:21 AM, Richard Hurt wrote:
> > Wow, my battery died like I've never seen it before.
> 
> This sounds similar, though definitely worse, than what happened with our
> '97 A42.8q when it's factory battery died. On something like a Tuesday I
> noticed that it cranked almost imperceptibly slower than normal, and I
> thought "I'd better have the battery replaced when I have the car in next."
> 
> On Thursday we had driven an hour away and when we go to re-start the car,
> it won't turn over. After trying a few times, and waiting a bit, we
> finally get it to start and can drive it home.
> 
> My theory is that we just experienced the long tail of the bathtub curve --
> the cells started degrading fairly quickly. We hadn't run it out of juice
> over its lifetime, which might have contributed to the sudden drop instead
> of a more gradual decline. Draining a led+acid cell damages it quite
> dramatically, but might have also resulted in it slowing down while it was
> still in the more horizontal part of it's degradation curve.
> 
> Anyway, I'm not entirely surprised that it died that way.
> 
> As far as why you could drive it once you started it: you were running off
> the alternator, not off the battery. If you had a big stereo that could
> out-draw the alternator at idle, it might have been even more fun of a
> trip. ;-/
> 
> Sean
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