Why does a car battery drain quickly?
Motorists quite often face the problem of battery discharge. For reasons that are not clear to many car owners, the battery can be discharged in a matter of days. And even long trips do not contribute to the full charge of the battery. Consider the possible causes of battery discharge:
old battery
90% of batteries on the Russian market are maintenance-free, so a "load plug" (a special device for checking battery power) is perhaps the only tool with which an auto electrician can check the performance of a battery. If the problem of battery discharge is a depleted resource, then further diagnostics of the vehicle's electrical system is not required. Service life of maintenance-free accumulators, as a rule, no more than three years. In other cases, the battery can be revived by replacing the electrolyte with flushing the battery and then charging. Also, rapid battery wear can provoke a climate with sudden changes in temperature. In the climatic conditions of Russia, such fluctuations exceed seventy degrees, which is detrimental to any battery, regardless of its cost and country of origin.
In the event of a battery failure, it may well help. The auto electrician will either get you to your destination or replace the battery with a new one at the location of the breakdown.
Signaling
The reason for the discharge of the battery can be car alarms, especially satellite ones. With an unused car, a satellite alarm "plants" any battery within two weeks. Also, an incorrectly installed alarm can create problems with the rapid discharge of the battery. In such cases, the anti-theft system is dismantled by an auto electrician to further check the electrical circuit. An experienced electrician will quickly determine where the current leakage occurs. If the diagnostics reveals that the alarm itself has defects, then it is most advisable to replace it with a new one. Now many car services offer to repair a faulty car alarm, but you need to accept such an offer carefully and only from trusted car repair shops. Otherwise, you may be disappointed a second time. The most common case after car alarm repair is a radio frequency failure, the consequence of which is a loss of signal, and, accordingly, alarm control.
If you have problems with the car alarm - you can’t turn it on / off, get into the car or start the engine, you don’t need to rush and order a service. It is worth first consulting with the technical assistance master - it is possible that the malfunction can really be fixed on the spot, while saving time, money and nerves.
Non-original speakers
When tuning car audio, rarely does anyone think about the enormous load of installed acoustics on all the electrical components of the car. A standard car audio tuning kit includes: a drive, an amplifier, a subwoofer, a radio tape recorder, sometimes a TV, a set of speakers, sometimes a TV and copper wiring that can withstand the power of a full-fledged power plant. With such a set of generated energy, there is simply not enough, the generator is not able to supply the car with the necessary amount of electricity, as a result of which the battery is discharged. When installing speakers, it is best to consult an experienced auto electrician, because with a little mathematical calculations you can determine how much load your generator can withstand, or you can solve the problem by installing a more powerful generator and an additional battery.
Auto repairmen do not carry out such work on the road, but they offer to order a tow truck to transport the car to the workshop.
Generator
Alternator failure is one of the most common causes of rapid battery discharge, and this nuisance defies statistics and can overtake you when leaving a car dealership in a newly purchased car. This cause of discharge is usually found out only after diagnosing the vehicle's electrical wiring. Don't worry too much about the failure of the generator. This breakdown is not significant. You can repair the alternator, buy a similar used one, or purchase a new one at the nearest specialized auto parts store. The most common cause of generator failure is the failure of the voltage regulator relay. Quite often, graphite brushes wear out on generators, in some cases bearings break, and a diode bridge fails. This can happen even on a new car due to a wiring problem.
Repair of the generator is in most cases a service work, therefore, in such situations, the dispatcher of the technical assistance service, as a rule, offers to transport the faulty car on a tow truck to the car repair shop.
Malfunction of electrical units
In rare cases, a breakdown associated with the car's electrics can not be found immediately. Modern cars have a complex wiring system and it can take more than a day to find a malfunction. Very often, some electronic elements that work in conjunction with similar, but responsible for completely different functions, fail, and if one, not so important element fails, all others responsible for the entire electronics of the car may fail. Sometimes such a breakdown is especially difficult to find. Many auto electricians have had to deal with simple oxidation of just one contact located on the engine control unit, but blocking the entire operation of the car. In such cases, computer diagnostics of the car is powerless and the malfunction has to be identified visually and eliminated manually. If you need to repair auto electrics, it is better to contact professional craftsmen who specialize in such work for more than a year.
On most cars, standard electrical breakdowns occur, accompanied by the same faults, and in the event of a widespread breakdown, almost any professional auto electrician who came to the call can make a diagnosis in a matter of minutes with further troubleshooting or an offer to transport the car on a tow truck to a car service, if troubleshooting requires conditions car workshop and service equipment.
