Ok so checked the battery via the diag screen with engine off and got 11.5 V so started it (just enough to do it) and went back to diag screen. What started at 11.5v dropped to 8.5v in less than 1 minute so suggests the alternator isn't providing a charge, right?

battery isnt holding its charge , thats why it falls to 8.5 volts...you need a new one. ... - .- -.




Y. O. L. O.
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Oh right, I thought once started the alternator would power the car not the battery.

 ... - .- -.




Y. O. L. O.
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Does the thumbs up mean its correct and the alternator should provide thew charge? So in this case a voltage drop would suggest a faulty alternator won't it?

Sorry to ask over and over but I want to be sure

Fully charged batteries commonly drop to about 8V on startup, particularly in cold weather, but the voltage should rise to about 14-14.4V fairly quickly with the engine running.
If it doesn't it suggests a fault on the charging circuit, probably alternator related.
Is the "ignition" light glowing red on the dash?

11.5V is a battery in need of recharging, should read 12.6V.
If the garage discharged the battery it suggests to me the battery needs charged using a charger for a couple of days.

When i started it and it was showing 11.5v there were no lights on the dash and all seemed well apart from the slowly descending voltage on the diag screen.

I watched it keep dropping until it got to about 8.5v then i got suspension messages etc then the car started to shut down so i couldn't run it long enough for it to raise the voltage on its own.

I'm charging it again now, i only gave it 1 hour last time so will leave it this time.

The garage admitted they discharged the battery when doing the software update when i questioned why the first attempt at the update failed. I never realised at the time

Just spoke to the specialist and as expected they claim it wasn't anything they did. The state that software updates to Bluetooth, PCM, instrument cluster, ride level control, transfer case, transmission and most systems only took 10 minutes in total to do them all so that's how long the ignition was on without the engine running.

I thought these updates took about an hour which would be enough time to drain the battery?. They do admit that it dropped but said only to around 12v, what's the cut off where the updates would fail?.

He is now away pricing me an alternator, surprise surprise

Hi,

Your battery is definately long past it's best, probably has a dead cell and will never recover no matter what you do to it as it will not hold the charge. SO that definitely needs replacing.

Your alternator:- I'm still not 100% sure it's faulty due to the fact that the battery is not capable of holding a charge. Can you get a battery from another car that you can try, just to see if the alternator charges it?

The alternator swap out is not too easy a job on the tdv8 engine, so will probably be quite pricey, so make sure it really is faulty. You need a new battery anyway, so why not get one and try the voltage checks once installed. If the alternator is faulty, you will know within a few minutes, and you can then go down that road. It won't damage a new battery if used like this. MY2007 Vogue SE TDV8 - Tonga Green / Sand
MY2005 Discovery 3 - Silver / Biege

Will the suspension error messages brought from the battery failure be stored in the ECU? When I got the car back after the service it has said suspension error message and I thought no more about it but now I want to priove that the garage dropped the battery voltage to 8.5v thus setting off the error.

They are saying it didn't go below 12v now that I'm challanging them.

If its any help at all, I was just playing with that diagnostic code - new to me - and my similar car with the standard RR battery was 11 volts with just the ignition on rising to 12.5 when the car was started. It did actually rise to 13 on blipping the throttle for a second until the Voltage regulator caught up and pulled it back down to 12.5. Geoff

i think that all errors are stored in the system until cleared by the relevant tool. That's not to say that you can see the errors. All your errors are due to a low battery.

Your battery, being wrecked, will never reflect more than 11.x volts because it cannot hold it's charge, so i guess that they are spinning you a huge one. I reckon that your battery was on its way out, and then with the guys doing what they did for an extended time without the car running has taken it below the threshold of no return...

As i've said, no matter what you do to try to save the battery, it will not hold the charge. I suspect the deepest charge possible will not help.

The ctek mxs 7 charger is advanced electronic type that also diagnoses battery faults and has various modes to try to recondition the battery, but I guess that it would find your battery well and truly kaput!

I doubt you'll get the garage to admit to anything and you wont be able to prove it, so I wouldn't even bother.

My car with fully charged battery , when left for an hour also indicates around 11.5 volts, but once started the voltage climbs to 12.5, then 13.5, then eventually (about a minute) 14 to 14.5 volts and stays there. MY2007 Vogue SE TDV8 - Tonga Green / Sand
MY2005 Discovery 3 - Silver / Biege

You need a new battery.

I had the same on mine almost to the letter.

Spend £100 on a battery and all this will go away.  Discovery 4 HSE
1998 110 TUM HS FFR Hard Top XD WOLF
1982 Series 3 Hard Top

*Gone:L462 D5 HSE LUX, L663 Defender 110 HSE, Discovery 3 HSE, 2014MY Range Rover Sport 5.0 Supercharged AB Dynamic; L405 Exec Vogue SE 4.4, 5.0 Supercharged Autobiography, Defender TDCi XS CSW, Defender TD5 HT, Vogue SE TDV8, Vogue TD6, RRSport SC 4.2V8, Classic 3.9 Vogue Auto, Land Rover Series 3 SWB

OK thanks everyone.

Still a bit pi**ed off that it was fine before hand and after their error in not connecting the battery pack during the updates its now kaput.

Annoying, especially when the f**king Bluetooth update did nothing so the whole process only served to wreck my battery

If you have 11.5V on a car battery you have a problem.
A fully charged battery will indicate 12.6V.
I have 3 in the garage sitting fully charged and they all indicate 12.6V and have done for weeks without charging.