desperatly need some electrical help...

[skr]

i just can't get it to start on cold mornings, but i am sure it's electrical related. the only mechanical issue is slightly low compression( engine wear),
but defenatly not to the point to cause serious trouble. the issue is that i can't get more than 5-6 seconds of cranking before i kill the battery, and those few seconds aren't even firm ,hard cranking and seem like it's not spinning as fast as it should. when the engine is even slightly warm it doesn't need more than 1 sec. to start so i don't have any problems. if i could get even as little as 4-5 seconds of hard cranking in the morning it whould start without problems
so far i checked for current draw and i get something like 40 miliamps wich seems normal , checkd the alternator and it's allso fine. the battery is a
varta 100Ah, 1 year old .
i went to a battery shop and they allso cheked my alternator , cheked for drains ,etc and said it's all ok.
then they asked me to stop the engine and start it again to see the current drop from the starter and they said it's way to big ( dropped to 7 or 8V )
now i'm suspecting the starter to be the cause of my trouble, but i never heard of starters going bad.
so, does anybody know if this current drop is in fact too big? i'm thinking it's shorting inside it somehow but whould it still turn if so? allso if i put the battery on the charger and charge it good i can start the car, the starter spinning more faster, wich makes me thing the battery is on it's way out too, even if the people at the battery shop said it's not dead yet.
any advice on what to look for, or any advice in general on this problem? it's realy annoing to me to take a cab if i'm not drunk or planning to get drunk :)
so, if anybody got any ideas please help me out... sorry for the long post

[Bill R.]

battery is internally shorted. If so it won't handle a load test. It will charge up fine and look good on the voltmeter after charging but if you put a load on it it will drop to very low voltage quickly. Typical symptoms of this are just like you describe. Take the battery out and have it load tested at an autozone or checkers or any other auto parts house that has a load tester.







i just can't get it to start on cold mornings, but i am sure it's electrical related. the only mechanical issue is slightly low compression( engine wear),
but defenatly not to the point to cause serious trouble. the issue is that i can't get more than 5-6 seconds of cranking before i kill the battery, and those few seconds aren't even firm ,hard cranking and seem like it's not spinning as fast as it should. when the engine is even slightly warm it doesn't need more than 1 sec. to start so i don't have any problems. if i could get even as little as 4-5 seconds of hard cranking in the morning it whould start without problems
so far i checked for current draw and i get something like 40 miliamps wich seems normal , checkd the alternator and it's allso fine. the battery is a
varta 100Ah, 1 year old .
i went to a battery shop and they allso cheked my alternator , cheked for drains ,etc and said it's all ok.
then they asked me to stop the engine and start it again to see the current drop from the starter and they said it's way to big ( dropped to 7 or 8V )
now i'm suspecting the starter to be the cause of my trouble, but i never heard of starters going bad.
so, does anybody know if this current drop is in fact too big? i'm thinking it's shorting inside it somehow but whould it still turn if so? allso if i put the battery on the charger and charge it good i can start the car, the starter spinning more faster, wich makes me thing the battery is on it's way out too, even if the people at the battery shop said it's not dead yet.
any advice on what to look for, or any advice in general on this problem? it's realy annoing to me to take a cab if i'm not drunk or planning to get drunk :)
so, if anybody got any ideas please help me out... sorry for the long post

[Javier]

the load test, check voltage at that battery and at the starter wile cranking, if there is a significant difference between both of them, then you may have a loose connection from battery to starter.

Javier

[winfred]

sounds like the battery has a weak cell or two, from a full charge it may even pass a load test but overnight the cell draws it down

[skr]

yea , you guys were right. i took it to get load tested at it failed . they said it's quite strange because the battey is qute new,and vartas don't fail too often. got myself a
new one, and it's a big diference.
and damn, that is a big ass starter (2.2 kw)... it's the same as the v12's right?
again, thanks for the advice. saved me from taking the starter off,putting it back in and banging my head on the wall :)