The same thing happened to me (on my Chebby). I had a 3.5 year old
Die Hard, Gold battery. It was summer and met my wife at a
shopping center to swap vehicles. I gave her the truck and I got
the wagon. I head off to work and when I get there I get a voice
mail from my wife that the truck is dead :-0
This is on a 75 F day and the truck was off for about 10 minutes.
When I got there the battery was flat. It would barely make the
seat belt chime sound. That battery never started the truck again.
Of course I had a warrenty on the Die Hard. After the pro-rating
it was only worth $15. I went out and got an Interstate battery.
It worked for 4 years until I sold it for the Dakota. OTOH, My
wife's 1991 Subaru has the OEM battery. Go figure.
My conclusion is that batterys just die sometimes. The plates
crack or short and that's all she wrote.
There is hope. I was reading my FSM on my 1998 Dak and the charging
system has a battery temperature probe. I know that the battery
temperature is an important parameter when charging a battery as it
effects the voltage and the charge rate. I assume that the
temperature probe is there to optimise the charge rate.
Drive Safe,
Joe
>Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 08:19:54 -0500
>From: Rader <rlr@bbt.com>
>Subject: DML: Electrical Banana
>
>Well, not really. More like Electrical Woes, but it doesn't have quite
>the ring to it.
>
> Yesterday, my '95 5.2 CC wouldn't start. Put the key in, everything seems
>fine and bright, but the starter cranked for maybe 0.25 second. Then, for all
>the world it acted like a dead battery (dome light dim, buzzer weak, starter
>relay chattering).
>
> A friend gave me a jump start and the truck seemed OK. Ran fine, voltmeter
>in normal range, radio and lights nice and bright. I did notice that the
>voltmeter would increase in response to RPM; again just like a dead battery.
>On the way home the Check Engine light came on, indicating trouble code storage.
>
> Got home, and the battery certainly seemed dead. Pulled the codes, and got:
>
>12 (battery disconnected)
>41 (generator field sensing circuit, uh oh)
>55 (end of test)
>
> Disconnected the battery for real, and on subsequent PCM tests the 41 code
>went away. That really seems odd; the codes are supposed to be stored for
>51 starts or something like that. I suppose a dead battery could cause the
>41, but I'm still a little paranoid since the FSM indicates that the voltage
>regulator/generator field sensing circuitry is all inside the PCM, hence big
>buckage for replacement.
>
> Overnight, I dumped roughly 70 amp-hours into the battery, but to no avail
>(still dead, registering about 11 volts). This is the H/D service battery
>(750 CCA), so it's possible that I just need to charge it up longer. But
>it still looks like the battery isn't taking the charge.
>
> This is pissing me off. The truck is less than 3 years old, and the whole
>reason I bought the H/D service package was to avoid stupid crap like this.
>I have never seen a battery shit the bed all of a sudden like that. Most
>battery failures I've seen came on with some warning (slow starts, etc.).
>
> I plan on attempting to charge the battery again, since the truck will run
>if it starts. But has anyone else seen anything like this? Really seems odd
>to me. I do plan to take it to my dealer and have them check the charging
>circuit out; that 41 code makes me wonder. And a 2.5 year old H/D battery
>should never croak like that. <grumble>
>
> Ron
>
Joe Dille
Telford PA USA
(joe@dille.montgomery.pa.us)
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