Any experience of these tablets that are supposed to help an ailing battery? Just thought for the price of them it may be worth a try.
My battery drops from 12.5 V to about 11.8 in a few days so may give them a go. The car is used very infrequently in winter months but it is kept in a garage.
Long time since I’ve used Bat Aid tablets.
Yes, they do work. Sometimes.
And sometimes they don’t.
For the few quid they cost, worth a try.
Good chance of working on a standard MK3 lead acid battery.
If the voltage is dropping from 12.5 volts to 11.8 in a couple of days there is a major problem though. I would check the car for dark current.
The MK3 standard lead acid panasonic battery will not last anything like as long as the sealed battery fitted to MK1 - MK2.5 cars
Battery Isolater is a better cure for just over a tenner or may be a trickle charger /condititioner
I lived in Hong Kong from 1994-98. Vehicle batteries seemed to fail through sulphation more quickly out there, probably due to the heat. Almost every filling station used to sell small bottles of a pale pink liquid, called EDTA, which is probably the same stuff as BattAid tablets. The idea was that it helps keep the plates free from sulphation.
I’ve just looked this up, it’s called EthyleneDiamineTetraAcetic acid. It might be possible to buy it in liquid form here, too. Although I’ve never seen it advertised.
Checked for battery drain with all electrics switched off and seems to be within spec at around 0.3ma
Put battery on charge and will see how it fairs disconnected from the car.
It is the original Panasonic battery on a 2006 car nearing 50k miles.
Not too sure how accurate your meter is ,but 0.3 mA is unreadable by anything other than a very expensive meter.Are you sure you don’t mean 0.300 mA ,which is much too high.
I’ve just used bat aid tablets on a battery that hasn’t been used for five years and now it holds full charge so yes it’s worth a try for the small cost
If this is the original battery it has done exceptionally well. The MK3 has a lead acid battery not to be confused with the AGM Panasonic fitted as standard to MK1 - MK2.5.
This was done for safety as fitted in the boot - no such consideration required for MK3.
10 years+ for a lead acid battery, especially one this small is quite exceptional I would say.
Play with the bat aid but expect to fork out if the battery cannot handle the next few months of cold weather.
I have had the battery out of the car and it seems to hold around 12.35v on the bench. Will put tablets in tomorrow and see what that does ?
0.3 amps is also 0.300 ma so I don’t see an anomaly in that. 0.003 would be ma. Reading a battery on the bench isn’t showing so called ‘dark current’ unless the battery itself suffers from that. Usually the result of plate sulphation, meaning the battery internally has it’s own resistance, causing a self discharge over time. You need to give it 24 hours after charge to see if it is draining itself.
What is often (erroneously) called dark current is actually ‘standing load’ cause by permanently connected equipment in the car, PCM, alarm, immobiliser and radio, or clock if a separate one is installed. 0.3amp (or 300 ma) is normal from my POV.
But yes, I agree with Rhino666, a 10 year old lead acid is - or will, reach the end of it’s life soon.
I hope you don’t have a set radio code, or you’ve disconnected it from further use if you have a set code and can’t remember what it is? (Sticking an ammeter in circuit will also cause this)
Ha ha! That’s another story about the code!..I knew the code but when I reconnected the power the radio wouldn’t accept it even though I followed the manual precisely. Ended up with the error display!!!
Spent about 90 mins googling and lots of different codes to no avail… Adamant I wasn’t going to dealer who is 30 miles away to pay them to sort it. Eventually found a sequence of buttons that cleared it and now code is removed!..Lesson learned ??
Still early days but I don’t think the battery voltage is dropping quite as quickly as before the tablets were added.