What's new

Battery Light Issue

Messages
21
Reaction score
0
Location
Newbury
Car
Accord 2.0 SE
Hi

I've got a 2.0 Honda Accord SE Petrol, had it for about 9 years and not had any major issues with it, until today!

Driving to work the battery light came on, no other warning lights (the mgmt light is on but that's another issue) and the car was fine.

Did some searching on these forums and everyone mentioned alternators and voltage regulators, stuff I have no idea about, I deal in PC support so mechanics is a foreign language to me! :)

Anyways, get home and do as some of you more knowledgeable people have mentioned and cleaned the contacts on the battery, make sure they are tight. Checked all the belts to ensure they are moving, tight and everything spins, which it does. Make sure the earthing cable is connected, and this is what is strange!!

Coming from my negative terminal are two cables, one goes to the bodywork, jsut by the battery, the other goes down the engine on the left hand side, so I lightly pull on this cable to find it is not connected to the terminal on engine.

Doe anyone know if this is meant to be connected or this is jsut a red herring and I need to for out for a new alternator.I don't have much spare cash, so looking at quick, cheap wins, to keep this beauty on the road!

Thanks in advance for any help and advice!
 
If that cable is supposed to be connected onto the engine then you could be right.

But my car is 7th gen so I can't confirm or deny if that's where the cable goes. Hopefully a 6th gen owner will know for sure.
 
This is a common point for rot to look out for as it is very exposed and has spent years getting wet and mucky.
It was the first thing I renewed on mine as my dad had a similar issue a few years back with his.
We have 3 Accords in the house, two of them 2.0 6th gen's.

The original cable is rather expensive where I've seen them available but another solution is what we have done. Visit Halfords or somewhere and get a suitable length. I got one like this as it's covered so should fend off the rot:
http://www.halfords.com/workshop-tools/garage-equipment/car-battery-chargers/halfords-negative-battery-cable-45cm-18
I can't remember if that's the exact length I bought so have a measure first, Ideally you'll want to buy one a bit longer than what you measure just to be one the safe side.

Disconnect the battery before doing any of this just to be safe (rubber gloves too).

You'll probably have a hard time removing the bolt that's down on the bottom mount so soak it in as much penetrating fluid as you can get down there and leave it for a few minutes to get working.
Unscrew the bolt holding it in place being careful not to bend the bracket too much.
Clean up the bracket as best you can, a clean connection is needed.
Cut the other end of the broken cable at the battery connector as close to it as possible. Make sure not to damage the bit that goes toward the headlamp.
Attach the new cable to the lower point.

Now you have two options.
1) Reconnect the new cable to the battery clamp in some way. My dad did this by undoing the nut that tightens it and added the cable there.
2) Connect it in the same place as the other earth near the headlight.

Enter, your radio code, reset the driver's window and off you go.

We've done it both ways on our cars and there've been no problems since. Just make sure all the connections are clean and that nothing is shorting where it shouldn't be.
While you're at it check the other earthing points. We've not had any issues with them other than looking at bit grotty from age.

Hope that helps :)
 
MedicalFlyer - Thanks for the info and where to buy a cable. Will look at this at the weekend and see if this resolves the problem. If not, then I need to find a friendly garage in Thatcham that will do a quick spot check on the alternator circuit for free!

Thanks again!
 
No problem.

As for testing the alternator a multimeter will give you a good idea of any issues. Set it to DC and test across the battery with the engine running and you should see ~14 volts. If it's reading ~12.5v or less then there's no charge going to the battery. Which may be the case at the moment with the broken cable as that's the main return feed from the engine block.

I too come from a computer tech background. With cars it's not much different in that it's usually the little things that cause most problems.
 
I'd add to that, check the obvious and make sure the alternator belt is still there. Always the possibility I may have snapped and vanished.
 
Alans27 said:
I'd add to that, check the obvious and make sure the alternator belt is still there. Always the possibility I may have snapped and vanished.
If you have aircon it won't be working if this is the case. That and you'd get to the point where you can't start the car or it'll stop dead while you're going along as the battery will drain fairly rapidly.
I'd ***ume during 9 years you've had the belts done a couple of times so this is probably not an issue unless the alternator has failed or the belt's loose.

My bets are on doing the cable and you'll be good to go for many more years :)
 
Well it died! :-(

Driving home last night and the car died completely, jsut after I bought a new cable to re-earth the battery.

The breakdown guy kindly told me it was the alternator, and that the cable wouldn't make much difference. I am going to fit the cable this weekend though, jsut to see if that does fix it. He also mentioned that I need two new tyres, which I was already aware of and I'd need cambelt change fairly soon too.

To be honest, I've not had the belts done, since the 2nd year I've had, unfortunately money hasn't been free enough to service the little beauty, but she's been good to me so want to keep it running.

If it is the alternator, then I've been looking at repairanycar.com for prices and they are around £270 for parts and labour the the alternator. Though I did find somewhere that would refurbish mine for about £80, but I'd have to remove and re-fit myself.

So this weekend will be spent trying the cable and if that fails then deciding to do what next!

thanks for the help! :)
 
Before you buy an alternator, on a lot of them there's a little regulator that goes and if that's the case you can sometimes replace them quite cheaply. I replaced one on a friends prelude a few years back. Not saying that's the case with yours, it might not be replaceable at all. Infact it might not even be the problem. But it might save you a few quid. A proper auto electrician would be the person to ask.
 
I'd still say the alternator is probably fine. Unless they tested it at the unit then it'd be hard to tell until that cable's back in place.
Get that done, jump start it and break out the multimeter. You should see 14v at the battery. Take it for a run to get some charge back in it and check again.

As for the belts, don't worry too much, they would be due by now but not in the danger zone. When I bought my car in October it'd last had the belts done 7 years ago and 17k on them. The car had done a thousand miles in the previous year and I've stuck 6k on it since. Just had the belts done and asked what condition the old ones were in. The reply I got was they were just starting to show signs of wear. Even the service interval on them is pretty long (96months/72k miles).

As always, start with the simpler things and go from there. :)
 
Actually bud if your battery has gone flat, charge it on a mains charger over night or whatever. Don't think you can jump start the car and drive it round to charge it. It doesn't work like that, get it on a mains charger :)
 
Well have 30 mins of fiddling, I've attached a new negative cable from the battery to the bottom of the engine and stuck a meter across the battery, unfortunately the £6 fix I was hoping for didn't work. Even under 2K rev's the voltage didn't change and stayed at 12.5v so does point to the alternator.

Wouldn't mind checking the voltage regulator before I tackle the alternator. Does any know where it is so I can find a guide for taking out the alternator as if it is this, I'm going to take it to the local guy who refurbs them.

Cheers!
 
Cheers fella.

Hopefully it won't be too much work and the refurb guy can sort it and turn it around in a day.

The it can get back on the road, surprising how you can miss driving a car!

Do you have the guide on tensioning the belt, jsut in case?
 
Here's the info for the belt:
https://app.box.com/s/1ft3flj48oje64kwnued8ar6alyu8yyf

It's never nice knowing your car's laid up, I had the starter go in mine about a month ago. Getting the bus to go and get a new one sorted was horrid. 40mins each way when I knew I could drive it in 10. And then the first one I got was rubbish and didn't even fit so had to repeat the journey to get it swapped for a proper Blueprint one. Luckily it's another part that's easy to access on these cars compared to most others.
 
Thanks for the belt info, seems simple enough.

Funny how I've learnt more about how my car works in the last few days then I have in the last 9 years!! :-D
 
^ I see you've asked in the 7th gen section as well ;
note that electrics in 7th gen diesel ehave a lot of differences to 6th gen petrol
 
Top