Electrical Problem, Electrical draw from battery when off

joelzashi · Mon May 26, 2014 8:53 am

Just wondering if anyone is having this same problem and/or knows what it is/a fix for it.

Basically 3 times over the last 4 weeks, when i have gone to start the kizashi, it trys to start up, but has an extended crank of roughly 10-15 seconds and then most of the time it will start.
No lights or anything are left on prior to the extended crank.

The battery i have in the car is a top notch one and it's about 7 months old.
Took it to Battery World today to get it tested, the technician said his battery tester was saying "Battery Unstable" when he was testing the battery with the car connected to it.
When the battery was disconnected from the car and connected, it showed that the battery had full capacity power.

So he says there is some sort of electrial draw in the car when switched off.

Has anyone else experienced this problem?/is it a common kizashi problem?

Let me know!
Booked the car in for a warranty check at Suzuki on monday, and i'm scared that i will have to sell the car as much as i love it.

Thanks

Woodie · Mon May 26, 2014 9:38 am

joelzashi wrote:Booked the car in for a warranty check at Suzuki on monday, and i'm scared that i will have to sell the car as much as i love it.

Woah! That's a leap!

I think there's a firmware fix for extended cranking.

murcod · Mon May 26, 2014 12:32 pm

joelzashi wrote: Basically 3 times over the last 4 weeks, when i have gone to start the kizashi, it trys to start up, but has an extended crank of roughly 10-15 seconds and then most of the time it will start.

The TSB Woodie mentioned hasn't (or hadn't?) been released in Australia. I complained about mine not starting to the dealer and they claimed they'd never heard of such a problem. There is obviously something wrong if it takes that long to start. If your battery can crank the engine over that long then it would suggest it's perhaps okay?

joelzashi wrote: Took it to Battery World today to get it tested, the technician said his battery tester was saying "Battery Unstable" when he was testing the battery with the car connected to it.
When the battery was disconnected from the car and connected, it showed that the battery had full capacity power.

So he says there is some sort of electrial draw in the car when switched off.

That's a bit suss? Did the tech try checking the current being drawn from the battery when everything is off? That would be the first step before automatically coming to the conclusion that something is drawing excessive current.

The dealer is certainly your best bet. I'd be interested to hear what they say.

The relevant TSB is located here http://www.kizashiclub.com/forum/downlo ... php?id=686 from this thread http://www.kizashiclub.com/forum/viewto ... &hilit=tsb . Perhaps print out the TSB and take it with you - you might get a more helpful response that way.

Mon May 26, 2014 1:15 pm

Battery World's diagnosis and your problem don't click with one another. I agree w/ David, they would need to check draw from the battery with the car off to come to that conclusion. Keep in mind there are things that normally draw small amounts of current when the car is off.

Woodie · Mon May 26, 2014 1:43 pm

The fact that it continues to crank over until it does start suggests that your battery is perfectly fine.

Mon May 26, 2014 3:23 pm

Yeah, this sounds like the extended cranking issue covered by that TSB. The car wouldn't crank over if the battery was faulty. You could take some voltage readings to rule the battery and alternator out

murcod · Tue May 27, 2014 3:41 am

bootymac wrote:You could take some voltage readings to rule the battery and alternator out

Yes. As a starting point I had 14.46V across the battery terminals at idle with low beam on. That was measured the other day when looking at the head light bulb issue.

LPSISRL · Tue May 27, 2014 5:40 pm

murcod wrote:
bootymac wrote:You could take some voltage readings to rule the battery and alternator out
Yes. As a starting point I had 14.46V across the battery terminals at idle with low beam on. That was measured the other day when looking at the head light bulb issue.

What was the voltage with everything off? If you measure while running, you're measuring what the alternator is putting out, not the battery. I believe a fully charged lead acid battery should measure 13.5 volts as each cell is actually 2.25 volts not 2. Measuring 14.46 volts would indicate that the alternator is putting out enough to at least charge it some. The real question is what does the voltage drop to when the alternator is under heavy load?

murcod · Wed May 28, 2014 1:25 am

LPSISRL wrote: What was the voltage with everything off? If you measure while running, you're measuring what the alternator is putting out, not the battery. I believe a fully charged lead acid battery should measure 13.5 volts as each cell is actually 2.25 volts not 2. Measuring 14.46 volts would indicate that the alternator is putting out enough to at least charge it some. The real question is what does the voltage drop to when the alternator is under heavy load?

The point of posting the charging voltage was to give an indication of what a healthy alternator output is in the Kizashi. (The tech seemed to be blaming the Kizashi, so the charging voltage is one of the first basic checks.)

13.6V is the normal "float" voltage for a lead acid battery (ie. what voltage the battery should be maintained/ charged at once the battery is fully "bulk" charged at the higher voltage.) You won't see that level on a car battery once the engine is turned off. You'll be looking more at the mid to high 12V range.

Regarding the alternator and output under heavy load - alternator output current increase with engine revs. So, at idle the alternator output will be at it's lowest (which will also give a correspondingly lower battery voltage at idle with any large electrical loads.)

The tech should have checked the current drain on the battery with everything off ( going by what he was suggesting that was the next step he should have completed.)

The bigger issue would appear to the extended cranking at start up. If the battery is capable of cranking the engine over (at normal speed) for the extended periods mentioned then it would appear there's not much wrong with the battery / charging system.

SamirD · Thu May 29, 2014 4:39 am

Since this sounds more like a cranking issue than a battery issue, I have a couple of ideas.

Fuel. Tried anything different than the usual? Bad tank of fuel?

Spark Plug. Probably won't be it, but it won't hurt to check the spark plugs. You can tell a lot from the end of a plug.