ahgli

Hello all,


I recently had a problem with the seat adjustment on my car and you guys were very helpful.


I've searched many forums and I can't seem to pinpoint the exact issue I'm having, sorry in advance if this his been covered and I'm just not able to find it.


I have a 2012 c63 coupe with zero modifications so far and every 10 days or so I get a Red Battery symbol in the cluster, I've searched and people have received this symbol with "Please Visit Workshop" message under it.

The message on mine is only the red battery symbol (are they both the same or are they two different faults?)



I've tested the battery while off and its 12.3 and 14.5 while the car is running. Good figures no?


Last night when I got home and parked it, it was idling for about 1 minute and I noticed the interior lights were dimming and getting brighter so I quickly tested it while it was running and it read 13.9-14.1 (the battery message did not trigger in the cluster)



The red message on both occasions only came up while I was parked after driving for about 30-40 minutes and it goes away if i turn the car off and back on. I've tried to purposely bring the message up so I can test it while the battery message is in the dash but I've had no luck.


An alternator here in dubai costs around 2000USD+labor so I'm trying to leave that to a worst case scenario, maybe the regulator or the battery?




Any help or advice is greatly appreciated and thank you in advance.

Critter

You state dimming and brighter is this with rpm change, if so regulator
12.3V is low for a fully charged battery, but if the regulator is messed then it may not charge the battery sufficiently.
14.5V is also on the high side- regulator change is what I would try first
Also charge up the battery with a good charger overnight and after disconnecting charger for about an hour recheck voltage.

ahgli

Hey everyone,

Instead of making a new thread I figured I'd just bump this one.

I was driving today at roughly 100km/h and my comand system shut off then the red battery symbol triggered in the cluster. I continued driving and I got it home, I parked, turned the car off and on again, it started but then I got this message (while it was still running)




So, I turned it off and got my voltmeter, the readings were low.

Car turned off: 11.3
Car on: 10.8-11.6

I turned it off and let it sit for about an hour, then I figured I'd take it out of the basement parking so I can have it towed tomorrow, I did the same voltmeter test again and the car was running perfectly, perfect numbers and all.

This happened a few months ago but all I got was a red battery light, comand didn't shut off or anything like that and it turned out being that the battery needed charging.

Has this happened to anyone before? If so, what was the culprit? im shipping this car back home with me next week and I would like to try resolve this issue before it sits in a container.

I've searched this forum over and over, but haven't found anything.

Thank you all in advance.

ItalianJoe1

It's normally an alternator. They are electronically controlled so the car may not be turning it on, that's very unusual though. 98% of the time it's a bad alternator itself, the onboard regulator isn't working right. At this point it's intermittent but eventually it will die completely.

QWKSNKE

Battery on its way out will do the same thing

cays

Heat will kill a battery. Change it out with a fresh AGM and see what happens.

CaptnCharisma

you can get a refurbished alternator for around 150 USD. I'm sure you can find a way to get them to ship to dubai. Good luck!
http://www.partsgeek.com/catalog/201...lternator.html

ahgli

Thanks for all the replies, I'll change the battery out tomorrow since its probably getting weak anyway and then I'll see if it solves my problem.

I'll report back!

ahgli

A little bit of an update,


The car is currently at the shop, so far what the advisor told me has been:

Alternator and battery are fine.
The water pump seemed to have failed and caused a disruption in the belt drive which caused the alternator pulley to fail and throw the battery light.

Seemed like a simple battery problem, guess not

ahgli

Update:

The car is back and as good as new.

What was fixed:

Water pump
Belt
All pulleys
Alternator
Battery


Thanks to all that helped.

chrisridebike8

Geez! How many miles were on your car? Is there an interval most people change the water pump? I know on my Lexus I always changed it with the timing belt every 90k miles.

ahgli

Roughly 42,000 miles, Its way too early for the water pump to have failed on me like this (I think). I'm not sure of the interval, but I believe the weather conditions here in Dubai had something do with it, its been 110+ here for the past month, maybe it caused the belt to soften up enough to cause the water pump to fail and then the domino affect came in to place taking out the alternator then the battery