Anyone use a battery charger / reconditioner to salvage a battery?

[A4orce84]

Hey Audi Family!

I recently have a dead battery that I am trying to revive and needing some help. I do not believe the battery is bad, due to it only being 6 months old. However, I had an issue which was draining the battery (resolved now) and I just have been driving the car overall less due to the COVID situation. I picked up the following Stanley Battery Charger to see if I could charge up the battery properly:

Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Question:
Does anyone have any experience using one of these chargers? Did it fix your issue? In addition, I am trying the battery recondition mode to see if it makes any difference as well. The other question I have is how long should a 'battery recondition' usually take? I am going on 24 hours no and unsure if this is normal or not.

Pictures:
https://imgur.com/B6cZ55H
https://imgur.com/gHpfDnw

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks,
Asif

[Dondbg]

Yes it does the job if the battery still ok with no damages.
If the battery completely dead what I do is connect A normal 12V power supply to give it a bit of juice as those chargers if they don’t detect any current will not start charging.

I used an old broadband router power supply for 30 min only.

[Seerlah]

Take it to AutoZone. They will charge it and test it to see if it holds charge. Easiest way to go about it... and it's free.

Many batteries tend to never be the same after it drops below a certain voltage. So even if you do charge it up, you won't really know the health of it unless you get it tested. It could be things compromised like lowered CCA and a slow voltage drop unnoticeable if you drive the car daily. Since you live in Texas things like that won't really affect you. But in regions that see colder weather (ie real winters), this is when the effects are noticed.

And FWIW, I used a Battery Tender Jr to charge a dead battery in my Maxima daily driver before. Completed in a few hours with the battery removed from the car (battery not completely dead, but not enough juice to start her up). Same effect as mentioned above, and replaced the battery yesterday on suggestion of the inspection station. Car would still start, but the battery was already compromised with lowered CCA and losing charge. But since it was my daily driver, didn't bother me much since I could still start the car and drive it as necessary. But much happier I replaced the battery vs worrying when was the next time voltage would drop too low to start the car.

[A4orce84]

Yes it does the job if the battery still ok with no damages.
If the battery completely dead what I do is connect A normal 12V power supply to give it a bit of juice as those chargers if they don’t detect any current will not start charging.

I used an old broadband router power supply for 30 min only.

Mine was pretty much dead, I think I measured it at 8V.

Wouldn't it say something if it wasn't charging / reconditioning? I'm assuming it is doing something currently.....

[Jeevan]

You need something called trickle charger( I think the one you bought has that option, simple charge battery in lowest amperage and keep it charged for 2 days) not the regular one if you want to revive battery. Its always 50-50 chance. Remember, Battery showing over 12.6V is not enough to call it good battery. It needs to deliver certain Amps of current at certain load.

more tips, remove the top caps of the battery and top up with distilled water and keep the caps open untill the battery charges fully. its takes about 2 days on trickle charger to fully get the battery in operating condition.


once you are done recharging it, load test the battery and yeah dont go to Autozone, their testing process is not efficient and ask me how I know about it. Here is an example of load testing without any tools. Start the car and stop for about 8 to 10 times.

[Mister J]

10v is considered a flat battery. 8v is worrisome and you probably have some damage done.

I agree on refilling the cells with distilled water if your battery is serviceable (not sealed/maintenance free).

Reconditioning sends a pulse that vibrates the plates in your battery to shake off any crystallization, then the crystals get dissolved in the electrolyte and put back into cycle. That isn't your first concern here. First you need to get some juice into it if it will still hold a charge.

Also, if it is only 6 months old it should be covered under warranty, so bringing it back to the place you bought it for testing should get you a free replacement if it doesn't hold amps.

If you have another car, you can hook it up with jumper cables (after the car is started) to pump it with juice at 13+ volts from the car's alternator. Then see if it holds or if your charger acknowledges it.

Sent from my IN2025 using Tapatalk

[wsmc549]

Put it on a 2 Amp charger and let it sit for a few days. It might come back to life.

[mc_hotmail]

Many years ago, car batteries have cell chamber holes, so you can add some distilled water if its acid level is low. Manufacturers stopped doing that, and now all batteries, AGM or not, are completely sealed. Haven't you also noticed that warranty periods have shrunk to 2 years compared to before? That's capitalism at its best -- pay more and often to buy new batteries.

I have used an off-line car battery charger before, with a heavy transformer, MOSFET triode and heat sink. It will charge the battery properly, but will not resurrect a degraded one, which auto-zone or o'reilly will tell you.

[pimpbot]

I had a similar issue. I put a clamp ammeter on the ground cable and found the car was drawing about 1-1.5 amps of standby current. I went down the rabbit hole of figuring out what is drawing that current, I found that it was not going through any fuse in the fuse block, and not going through a bad diode in the alternator.

So what the crap was it?

Turns out that the glove box light is wired directly to the battery without a fuse, and my glove box open/close switch was broken, and stuck on. You know how the hinges love to crack and break? Yeah, due to that. I put my phone in the glove box recording video and confirmed the glove box light never turned off. I pulled the light bulb and pulled the electrical connector on the switch in the glove box and it the issue went away. Ugh. That's some crappy engineering right there.

[mc_hotmail]

You know how the hinges love to crack and break? Yeah, due to that.

audi+a4+glove+box+repair+kit

[Quattrological]

Huge thanks man. Just did the “close it w/ phone inside” thing and, sure enough, my light stays on.

I’ll eventually tend to my broken hinge...sounds like sooner rather than later.

Thanks again.

[Quattrological]

Me again, posting a “FWIW.” That plunger (to slow open/close) is- as others have pointed out- the huge weak link. Just wayyyy too stiff- way too much strain on the poorly designed hinge. Rather than do “the fix” to that (drilling the tiny hole at the end of the plunger) I just removed it altogether. I don’t use the glovebox anyway, so by having it and the switch removed (it’s a one piece unit) no worries about the light staying on. Thanks again for posting the tip about this all resulting in the light staying on/drawing power.