i last used my impreza (hawkeye) last saturday, only a short journey around 5 miles then parked it up as ive been using the jeep all week. ive just gone out to start it to go and get fuel and it wont even try to turn over.

the central locking unlocks/locks fine
the dash performs its sweep as usual
then i go to start it and get nothing just a click then a chirp from the alarm.

flat battery perhaps? the car in the last month or so hasnt really done any long journeys or regular short journeys if im honest. maybe 1 or 2 trips to work (4 mile there 4 mile back) maybe twice a week.

the car had a new battery around march time this year

 

Almost certainly a flat battery - the chirp from the alarm is a low voltage signal.
Sounds as if it need a cycle on a battery conditioner/charger.

 

i remember when i started it last saturday it turned over slowly, ive got too comfy with my heated leather seats in the jeep recently thats why the impreza hasnt moved much

 

Flat Battery definitely...SJ.

 

guess i will have to use it more often then..........

 

would this be what i need

https://www.halfords.com/workshop-to...enance-charger

 

or one from Ctek which conditions it as well
https://www.ctek.com/products?catego...recommendedfor

 

cheers buddy

my alarm isnt likely to start going off in the night is it whilst the battery is flat?

 

It might do mine did last time my battery went dead

 

 

I keep my low mileage car on trickle charger all the time as the alarm flattens the battery. The obvious one is to have side lights on when you do drive so it keeps charging..
Trev

 

Head gaskets and ringland.

Or... simply a flat battery!

 

I have a CTEK MXS 5.0 which I use all the time as my Bug doens't get driven very often so I have 2 batteries on rotation. One negative I have noticed is that it doesn't recognise if a battery can't maintain a charge. I had a battery that I ran the full reconditioning programme with. Once it was finished, will all lights showing that it was charged and completed, you could remove it and stick a multimeter on the battery and see the volts drop away instantly. Whereas when I plugged it into my neighbour's Optimate charger, it flashed up straight away that the battery couldn't hold a charge.

Maybe mine has just developed a fault.

 

was a flat battery,got a booster pack on it today and it fired up straight away so took it out for an hour with the side lights on to get some charge into it.

so take your headgaskets and shove em up yer fooking ringland

 

haha. Good to know.

I have a CTEK trickle charger on my beetle, it's great.

 

think i will invest in one, will come in handy for the jeep aswell when i use the subaru.

is this the one i need

 

Something like that would work fine. Mine is the even cheaper version and so far the last 3 years it's been perfect. Keeps my beetle charged all winter and the weeks I'm not using it.

 

cheers buddy

 

No worries mate.

 

would this be suitable for the Impreza? It says for motorcycles.

 

Yep, that's the one I use on my cars. It will happily trickle charge a 100ah battery too. It's not powerful enough to charge a battery from dead, but it keeps my cars topped up ready to start just fine.

Had it on my beetle 3 years now and battery always ready to start. Also moved it to my FSTI to keep that charged when I bought my new car.

All good.

I have a much more powerful charger also for when batteries are dead.

 

If you want me to come over with my multimeter and test it mate let me know, I'm free tonight if that's any good to you.

If it's gone beyond a certain threshold it may not be possible to fully recover. With winter coming up last thing you want is to be left stranded!

 

 

Yeh they work well Zany. I had one on one of my old mini's years back.

 

 

i've just bought one of them chargers from above - went for the car one (5.0) as my battery is dead flat so might be a good idea to recondition it - not much more expensive than buying a new battery and should last me a while.

I like the idea of a cut off switch however, is this something i should be doing anyway for a track car? whats the best way to go about it . Im not electronically minded!

 

 

thanks buddy but it seems fine now,it was a new battery earlier this year so hopefully no damage done. i will be investing in a trickle charger now though

 

no probs mate! Hopefully just a one off.. you now have an excuse go drive it more!

 

so I now have one of these chargers, can I connect it whilst the battery is still connected to the car? Also do I literally just connect to the battery terminals.

It says in the instructions not to extend the cable charger, do they mean extension leads are a no-no?