Flat Battery

After not using my Jimny for 10 days due to working from home and taking advantage of the nice weather and using my other car for essential trips to work, my battery was flat this morning. Probably not surprising it was a Yuasa so probably original (9 years old). My Jimny did start up, it was a close run thing though and once running hardly any of the electrics worked, most of the dash was off, the side lights wouldn't come on, the radio didn't work, the battery light was on, so was the ABS light.

I thought a trip to work would put enough charge back in the battery, I was wrong. I checked the voltage after it had stood for 30 minutes, 9.4V (13 or 13.8V is more the norm), so decided the battery had had it, at least one or two cells must have failed.

A trip to a local motor factors (soon to be called brexit-car-parts) and £55 for a Lion 155 battery soon sorted out the problem and all of the electrics work again. I had a bit of difficulty finding the right battery, there seems to be lots of different numbers quoted, the original was a 55B24R and I have seen 059, 057, 055 quoted. An 055 was exactly right but capacity and cranking current were slightly lower so went for the 155 (45aHr, 330A cold crank), it is the same size, just higher output.

Funny thing is 3 or 4 weeks ago my missus' Qashqui (someone has to buy them) did the ame thing, she didn't use it for 4 days and the battery was flat, wouldn't even start her diesel, even after been plugged in to my Cetek for a few hours.

Moral of this storey, in cold weather whe nnot using your vehicle for a few days and with an old battery, go and start it up and run it for a few minutes, listening to the radio whilst observing social distance and no unnecessary journey rules.