[James T. Kirk©]

I told my wife, I would do link her phone to our Parrot handsfree which was in the car when we bought it some weeks ago. I linked it, and all of a sudden the radio went silent, so I thought, it had to do with BT Parrot handsfree system that does things via the speakers. So I turned ignition off and on again and still no radio. I thought, let's just start and see whats happened. All of a sudden stuttering noises and all of the dash looked like a discotheque....failing! I thought the Parrot might have made a short circuit or something and could only think of, unplug the battery for 10 minutes to reset the ECU and try it after that. Still the same!!! :worms:

I called up the person I bought the car from a and asked what can be going on. Oh, sound like your battery is flat..... [smilie=confuzzled.:

Say whaaaat?? C'mon, this is not a VW Golf, this is a Civic! Turned out he was right. As soon the neighbor came home I asked him to help jumpstart the car and indeed, I got it running again...

After that I went for a short drive on the motorway and everything worked as normal.
When I was home, I shut down the car and tried to restart. This time without a problem.

So I went looking for a replacement battery and hoped to find me a nice Yuasa, as I have great confidence in these, as my Aerodeck ran 12 or 13 years on one.

Could not find one that was meant for this Honda, just other brands and I'm not so much interested in Bosch, Varta (Same actually) and a lot of Varta sub brands...
I went back to the car to take the measurements and found out, it has a kind of old fashioned radio eye on top of it (Brand is SMF 54523, made in Korea!)
If it is green, everything is peachy, when it's white, it needs to recharge and when black, replace your battery. So it seems the battery is not bad, and then I read that some of the newer Yuasa batteries for cars have also such "magic eye" And more battery brands do I found out.

[IMG]http://www.accudienst.nl/images/accudienstnl/vmf_magic_eye.jpg[/IMG]

Instad of buying a new battery, I invested in slightly less for a good charger and decided to order this one. (Not here, but this type)

Unfortunately I don't have my own drive way, but I can charge the car during day time, if I can park close to my front door and people can see the extension chord on the pavement... :facepalm:

 

[Jon_G]

A charging rate of 0.8A is a bit feeble. I'd want a more 'traditional' battery charger.

Assuming the battery is OK, then something must have caused it to become drained and needs to be investigated.

 

[Kremmen]

Now that I'm only doing about 25 miles a week I'm running a Ctek 3.8.

Brilliant piece of kit as it does the charge and recondition in stages and shows you what it's doing.

 

[James T. Kirk©]

A charging rate of 0.8A is a bit feeble. I'd want a more 'traditional' battery charger.

Assuming the battery is OK, then something must have caused it to become drained and needs to be investigated.

Well, if you read the many, many of comments, I read, it seems adequate to keep the battery in good condition. I checked the battery this morning and a nice "green eye" greeted me. I must have been showed off the car a bit to much with extra starts and my wife using it for short grocery trips yesterday. Then me afterwards with car on contact, blower on, must have done the bottleneck. I wonder how those cars with stop/start devices pull that off...

 

[Jon_G]

Well, if you read the many, many of comments, I read, it seems adequate to keep the battery in good condition...

But why not buy a proper charger that can also effectively charge a flat battery when necessary?

A feeble delivery of 0.8A would take around (78AHr/0.8A/24 =) 4 days to fully charge my car battery! That thing is surely for motorcycles?

 

[Syx]

If it's just keeping it topped up then it's fine, but not exactly suitable for a full charge.

The Civic does like to drain the battery pretty rapidly when on ignition position 2.

 

[Bog]

The OEM battery's in non diesel 8G Civics were not up to the job, especially in higher spec cars with Sat Nav. This basically meant that if you sat listening to the radio without the engine running for more than 15-20 (less on an older battery), the battery would not have enough power to crank the engine and you'd get the check system message you describe.

A lot of owners including myself upgraded to a Bosch S4 (S4021) which was a massive improvement.

More info here: http://www.civinfo.com/forum/electronics/33770-bosch-s4-battery-better-then-honda-oem.html

 

[Bog]

I wonder how those cars with stop/start devices pull that off...

Simple, they have much higher capacity batteries (Higher Amperage)

 

[James T. Kirk©]

The OEM battery's in non diesel 8G Civics were not up to the job, especially in higher spec cars with Sat Nav. This basically meant that if you sat listening to the radio without the engine running for more than 15-20 (less on an older battery), the battery would not have enough power to crank the engine and you'd get the check system message you describe.

A lot of owners including myself upgraded to a Bosch S4 (S4021) which was a massive improvement.

More info here: http://www.civinfo.com/forum/electronics/33770-bosch-s4-battery-better-then-honda-oem.html

I happen to know, that Bosch has them made by Varta and unless Varta has improved tremendously (bad experience with it in my VW Golf in the past), I'd love to equip my car with a Yuasa. But I haven't figured out, which Yuasa is the best for the job. This I know, my old 1.5 Aerodeck did 12 or 13 years with it's first Yuasa! [smilie=gt-happyup.:

 

[Bog]

I happen to know, that Bosch has them made by Varta and unless Varta has improved tremendously (bad experience with it in my VW Golf in the past), I'd love to equip my car with a Yuasa. But I haven't figured out, which Yuasa is the best for the job. This I know, my old 1.5 Aerodeck did 12 or 13 years with it's first Yuasa! [smilie=gt-happyup.:[/quote]

But companies change over 12 years, so it does not mean Yuasa are still good... Maybe they are, but in the Civic which has far more electronics than the Aerodeck would have had.

Bosch and Varter may have a joint venture, but the proof is in the pudding and you can't ignore the fact that lot's of Civic owners have had a good experience with this particular Bosch battery just because you've had a bad experience in the past.

 

[cosmicma]

i bought a charger similar to that for the caravan i think it's maximum charge current was 4 amps but the same as any intelligent charger it would vary voltage / current depending on battery charge state and stop charging when battery was fully charged
looks very similar to the one posted but can't check if it's the same make as it's 350 miles away connected to the caravan battery

works well and it's a few years old now but there only really any good for keeping a battery topped up for charging a battery from dead your better of investing in a proper lead acid charger ( as already mentioned )

 

[James T. Kirk©]

But companies change over 12 years, so it does not mean Yuasa are still good... Maybe they are, but in the Civic which has far more electronics than the Aerodeck would have had.

Bosch and Varta may have a joint venture, but the proof is in the pudding and you can't ignore the fact that lot's of Civic owners have had a good experience with this particular Bosch battery just because you've had a bad experience in the past.

I still have the utmost respect for Japanese car parts (read many testimonies), the things that broke on my Aerodeck were usually German, though I love my Bosch dishwasher... And yes, they make the dishwasher themselves.

Anyway, first I must be certain my battery is really faulty and it was not just a fluke. As today I used the car without any problem. Maybe the dealer knows how to check the state of it (I don't own a multimeter) and if the alternator delivers enough voltage for the battery to charge.

 

[James T. Kirk©]

Charger came in today

Today I got my Ctek XS 0.8 and I connected it according to manual, it went without hitch calmly from 1, to 2, 3 and when I disconnected half an hour ago, it was on checking light 5 (about 6 hours total charge). I then connected the fixed cable so an easy connect next time, it has a plug which is closed off with a rubber or plastic lid.

I did not get any strange warnings or whatever and it did, what it had to do. When I checked the dash afterwards, everything lit up like a Christmas tree, so it looks there is plenty of 'juice'.