Drained C6 Battery recharge?

[Philzer]

Less than 400 miles old and all the caution in the world, but the cold weather in Boston and the (apparent) failure to place in Reverse when garaging has left me with a dead battery. Usually, not a big deal to jump. But it didn't take the jump. Help!

Anyone got any ideas?

Here are the details, so that we might all learn from my error.
1) I swear it was in Reverse. The dash lights went out indicating that I had placed no addt'l draw on battery other than ongoing ability to react to fob. I went up the stairs from the garage and accidentally hit the fob panic button. Horn goes off, so I click to unlock and relock, everything is fine so I go in for dinner.

2) One week later, I go to garage for the weekly startup (too icy here to get off of my frozen, 350 foot uphill, north facing, driveway) and the fob is undetected. The interior alarm light is not flashing, so I open the rear window, pull the cord to open the electronic door. Yup, it'd dead.

3) I perform a proper jump from a good battery, all according to Vette manual, and..... nothing. Not even a click from the starter button.

4)The negative ground is going to a bolt to the right of the battery, which is attached to resin wheelwell. Is it inadequate? OR is the alarm system locking me out from last week. OR is it a malfunctioning ECM?

I've jump charged several cars, and never had NO reaction... Now can't close door due to indexing windows!

Anyone have any ideas? Sorry for being stupid, but I'm stumped, and so was the dealer, who suggest a trickle charger.

 

[wishuwerehere82]

Philzer,

I would get a cheap Voltmeter from Radio shack first.

Get a good battery charger that has 2.5A, 6A, And 50A capacity(Sears has them).
Take your battery out of the Vette, and put the 6A charger on it.
Measure the voltage on the terminals as it is charging.
If it has 13.5-14 Volts on the terminals when you put the charger on, it has an internal open circuit, and needs replacing.
If it has 0 volts and then starts to increase as it is charged, it may have some life left in it. If it charges back up to 13.7 volts after the charge, it is still holding the charge.
You can put the charger set at 50A on the battery leads without the battery to power the Vette back up and get your windows closed.

You are probably looking at getting a new battery in all probability,the dealer should be made aware, you may find it's in the warranty.

 

[wishuwerehere82]

If your battery checks out good and your voltage is over 12Volts, call the dealer and have him bring it in for warranty repair.

 

[atmmac]

If your battery checks out good and your voltage is over 12Volts, call the dealer and have him bring it in for warranty repair.

Nows the time to bring it in when your not driving it.

 

[Philzer]

C6 Battery Drain

Thanks to wishyouwerehere for the solid info.

I do not want to abuse your time, but I'm thinking I should give a routine jump one more time using the ground I found (closer to front of wheel well) as the old ground point was a bolt in contact with resin, not metal. You are probably right that it may be the battery, but I'm thinking one more try may at least get me started...so I can drive to SEARS to buy the battery minder/charger that I'm going to need.

thanks

 

[tonyhood]

Dead Battery 4000 Miles / CAGS Issue?

Saw this posting, as well as another one a month or so ago. I've had my C5 now for about 4 months and I'm very well accustomed to putting it in reverse, so I didn't have any problem. But, I just got back from a 4 day trip leaving my car parked at the airport. This is very common for me. My car sits parked as much as I get to drive it. So a 4 day sit is nothing new. But, this time when I came back it was just as Philzer described. No power whatsoever. Fortunately, I had my hidden key available and was able to get into the car. The first thing I checked when I opened the door was to see if I had put the car in reverse. Yes, just like always. Reverse and the parking brake set. Nothing else to drain the power.
Now, since I have done this ever since buying the car in Nov, this has never been an issue. The only thing that changed was that I installed a CAGS bypass a week ago. No problems, easy to install, it worked perfectly. One little issue, the instructions said that the 1-4 shift light would still come on, but it doesn't....at least it hardly ever does. Every once in a while I will see the 1-4 light, but not on a regular interval when it should be on. Can't understand the inconsistency.

Now, unlike Philzer mine did take a jump start from a hot-shot and it started right up, no problem. No reprogramming, nothing. Just jumped it and it ran. I drove it about 45 mintues home and shut if off in my garage and it started right back up with no problem. Now, I know it sounds like exactly what will happen if you don't put the car in reverse before you get out and leave it. But, that was defintely not the case here. The car was in reverse. Any chance the computer is not picking that up, maybe because of the CAGS or something?

Any ideas? Any communication from GM about this? Anything to do with the CAGS bypass? I surely don't want this to happen again.
Tony

 

[Philzer]

C6 Battery Drain: Connection to alarm

Tonyhood:
I am convinced that the accidental discharge of the fob panic alarm, and my subsequent resetting of the locked, alarmed condition before leaving it undriven for seven days is at the heart of the problem. I'm no electrical engineer, but I suspect that the alarm understandably cycles any electric setting into a shut down mode so that the vehicle cannot be driven/stolen Thus the minimum use of currrent for a normal shutdown is voided. It might have been OK for three or four days, but a week would certainly drain it.

By the time I attempted to start it, it was drained while in the alarm mode, so that is why it took two separte starts to turn over: the first to recognize the fact that the rightful owner had the Fob present and then disengage the electrical lock, and the second to actually start the engine via a connected, good battery.

On the second try I was able to jump it successfully after connecting the ground to the more substantial ground wire next to the right wheelwell. That blew out the tire pressure sensor fuse, but that was easy enough to resolve.

It may be a rare series of circumstance that I experienced: an alarm shut down, and a failure to restart before the battery was drained. With several thousand vehicles, and several million driven miles, sooner or later someone else will make the same errant steps I did. Again, it is less of a software program failure than a software success that prevents theft, but compromised after the fact by not starting it over and recycling the whole process.

I KNOW that I left it in Reverse.

I hope Chevrolet can comment on this, but I am very thankful to be a member of the Corvette Action Center.

Philzer

 

[tonyhood]

Another funny thing happened .....

This just happened to me yesterday and now I've started the car up several times, and drove it today. No problems. Just like new. I did check the battery after driving it 45 minutes yesterday to recharge the battery, and it was 13.2 volts. I've been checking everything over to see if anything came "un-programmed" during my battery outage, but so far everything seems in order. Except one thing I just noticed today. My drivers window doesn't index anymore. Is there any correlation between the dead battery, the window indexing, and/or the CAGS bypass?

 

[Mr.Cool]

You will have to perform the relearn procedure for the window indexing after a dead battery isssue. I removed my battery once and did not lose anything stored in memory but one window would not index. I also installed my cags bypass last week. No problems with that so far.

 

[tonyhood]

Thanks, got it. I appreciate the help. Any idea why the battery drained in the first place?

 

[Mr.Cool]

Not really I've never had the problem but I believe there has been some bad batteries. I also think that some might have bumped their interior light switch. And of course the putting it in 5th rather than reverse. Also I think supposedly there is a fuse or relay #46? that is for a headlight wiper for Euro export that could be an issue.

 

[autocutter]

If the car will not start even with a jump, then low voltage protection is the trouble maker and has locked the electricals down. Get in to the car, close the door, and press and hold the Accessory button down for 5+ sec's. Your dashboard gauges etc should come alive (you can even change Personal Options now), press the starter side of the button and it should crank. Don't wait to long on the starter because of the heavy voltage draw.

 

[tonyhood]

Great tips. How do you find out this stuff? Just an update on my problem. I took it into the dealer today and they did a load test on the battery and electrical system. No problems. The mechanic said that sometimes even when you put the car into reverse, it is possible the switch did not trigger. That doesn't account for why the bells and whistles didn't go off when I got out of the car, but it may be the answer for the dead battery. I'm just hoping it was a one time occurance.

 

[Dad]

Sponge gate for reverse.

One of my main concerns was the sloppy reverse gate and the "You got to put it in reverse or I'll kill your $$$$ battery" maneuver GM did on the shut down procedure. It seems to me that if you shut down a standard shift in any gear you do that with the clutch down. When the shut down button is pushed you then let out the clutch and release the foot brake. Why would that not be a good point to shut off the residual power? You could then shut it down in the gear you chose and not have to hit the spongy reverse gate. It could notify you, as it does now, if you had left it in neutral and that it was not properly shut down.
I might add that it has not been a problem other than I've restarted the car a number of times and let the clutch out enough to make sure it was in reverse. Pain in the arse but better then being punished for not hitting the "sponge gate".
:confused ad

 

[autocutter]

Great tips. How do you find out this stuff? Just an update on my problem. I took it into the dealer today and they did a load test on the battery and electrical system. No problems. The mechanic said that sometimes even when you put the car into reverse, it is possible the switch did not trigger. That doesn't account for why the bells and whistles didn't go off when I got out of the car, but it may be the answer for the dead battery. I'm just hoping it was a one time occurance.

I'm a IT geek & Car geek-I was made for the C6! Actually, I figured that there would have to be a "clean" way to bypass the low volt protection scheme without having to disconnect the battery and that GM would not tell anyone or worse make money for the dealer. By the way, lose the stack cigarette lighter and watch the DIC voltmeter's reaction; disconnect the hood courtsy light if tapping on the right side hood shock makes the light go off and on; computer based chargers do not read correctly when attached to the battery-get a good multi-meter and shut the charger down when the battery reads(without the charger on) 12.7 volts

 

[nhgoodrich]

Less than 400 miles old and all the caution in the world, but the cold weather in Boston and the (apparent) failure to place in Reverse when garaging has left me with a dead battery. Usually, not a big deal to jump. But it didn't take the jump. Help!

I had my '05 Z51 in 3 diff dealers at least 5 times with them trying to find out why the battrey kept discharging. finally, i was able to coerce them into replacing the battrey, and the problem went away...

Nick, black Z51

 

[6 Shooter]

Sorry to hear about the problems with your new Corvette . . .

Welcome to the

Later . . . . . .
6 Shooter

 

[nhgoodrich]

unfort, my car has been in the shop some 20+ times, this year! it has been in the shop now since thursday, may get it back monday...

think it was born on a fri or mon morning... :L

 

[Dad]

Know what you are going through, I've had mine now going on 6 months and need to take it in Monday, first time, oil change. I did the first one, just wanted to see what was under there and how hard it might be to change the mufflers. If you've had it back 20 times it may be time to find a GM dealer that knows what he's doing, not who he's doing.

How many of those were for the battery and what were the others for?

 

[Dave C. '04 Z06]

Okay guys... I've driven a C6 6-speed, but do not own one. But I am wondering why the heck you'd have to put the car in reverse to shut it off anyways? In my C5, I just shut off the motor no matter what gear it's in and set the emergency brake. I usually leave it in neutral, but if I'm on a steep hill I might put it in 1st or reverse as a safety measure against rolling, but why does GM make you put it in reverse if you're on level pavement? (like in your garage)

Inquiring minds want to know.

-Dave C. '04 Z06