spiros206

I am kind of at at a loss of what to do here. I have a c230 which seems to have some kind of electrical issue. I put a new battery in it and within less than a year the battery completely failed. I have tried charging it, using a jump pack but to absolutely no avail. I am not getting the car to do anything, no interior lights nothing at all. I do not drive it very much. I was told whilst in a auto store that the car needs to be coded when a new battery is installed failure to do so could cause it to die. Does anyone know if this is true? If I get another battery & install it is it likely to be driveable? There is vitually no power in the current battery. I guess that I need to buy some kind of charger to keep the battery maintained once a new one is installed. It only has about k135 on the clock & is not a daily driver. I hope someone can help me with this, many thanks!!

slammer111

That is not true at all. These cars do not need battery coding.

Did you buy an OEM battery?

Does your car have power seats?

How often do you drive your car?

spiros206

Interesting.....I bought the battery from a place that does oil changes, brakes etc on my cars as well as tires. Have used them for years.

Yes I think it does have power seats however they are not adjusted very much as I am the only person who drives it.

I only drive it when its not raining & largely in the summer. It does not do short jouneys to the store, when it does get driven its just for fun. I would guess it does under 6k miles in a year

slammer111

The amount you're driving is enough to keep the battery charged. You might've simply installed a bad battery. Hopefully there's a warranty.

However, you might also be dealing with a parasitic drain. The power seat modules are notorious for this.

Check the current draw when the car is sleeping (5-30 minutes after turning off the engine). The car will always be drawing some, but it should be somewhere around 0.05A after all the modules are sleeping. If the number is too high, unplug the seat modules (1 at a time) and see if the number drops.

spiros206

Sadly I very much doubt if the warranty is good anymore, I can only hope that installing a new battery will get it started then I can look at the modules. How do I go about checking them? It’s well out of my experience

slammer111

The quickest way to do this is to unplug the power seat modules which are located beneath the seat cushions. As for the battery, you can either charge it up or replace with a new one. To eliminate the battery as a possible source of problems, it is probably best to replace it too.

jggarcia.vc

Another question is does your alarm beep when you lock your car? The alarm horns are known to burn out and cause parasitic drains as well.

tyabnet

Compared to years ago when auto batteries lasted a very long time - most modern batteries have a much shorter life due to manufacturer cost savings. Remember the days of the 7+ year DieHard gold and all of the competitors? Those days are long gone.
Common warranties nowadays are 1 - 3 years. You stated the warranty is long gone - that means your battery is beyond its design life - manufactured obsolescence to help extract more $ from you.

You have deeply discharged your battery. Once you do that level of deep discharge, the life of the battery is reduced and many lower end chargers can't even recharge a deeply discharged battery.

Replace the battery, and as already stated above, check for a parasitic draw. Either fix the draw or keep a trickle charger on it to counter-act the parasitic draw and live with it.

tkid

Has the alternator been checked that it can charge the battery properly?.. (Alternator bushings do wear out and need replacing..)
A quick check is to start the car, and disconnect one of the battery leads; the alternator should be able to supply enough power to keep the engine running.. !?