11 volts on gauge with car off, key in pos 1/2
09-18-2004 | 10:37 AM
#2
Nordschleife Master
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 5,159
Likes: 1
From: Minneapolis, USA
The first thing to do is check battery voltage with the car off and then again with the car running. Check your dash gauge to compare.
You got the full battery cable kit over a year ago so if you put that in that probably isn't your problem but it would be easy enough to check by taking another reading at the positive input terninals on the fuse/relay board. There are two of them on the forward wall off to the right side of the relay board.
However, ~ 11.0+ volts at the dash gauge after the car has been sitting off for several hours is probably about right. When you turn the key on your car starts drawing somewhere around 7 amps. A good portion of that goes to the HVAC fan that constantly runs. So the battery is going to drop voltage a bit and you will lose some through the fuse/relay board. It is not at all unheard of to lose up to 0.75 volts just running through the fuse/relay board. It is lost through the fuses and all the connections within the board. Make the comparative voltage measurements at the battery and dash gauge while shut down and running to get a baseline.
If the voltage at the dash gauge jumps up to around the high 13's or 14.0 volts when you fire up the motor, all is well and quit looking for problems you don't have. Our cars have enough real problems to deal with.
You got the full battery cable kit over a year ago so if you put that in that probably isn't your problem but it would be easy enough to check by taking another reading at the positive input terninals on the fuse/relay board. There are two of them on the forward wall off to the right side of the relay board.
However, ~ 11.0+ volts at the dash gauge after the car has been sitting off for several hours is probably about right. When you turn the key on your car starts drawing somewhere around 7 amps. A good portion of that goes to the HVAC fan that constantly runs. So the battery is going to drop voltage a bit and you will lose some through the fuse/relay board. It is not at all unheard of to lose up to 0.75 volts just running through the fuse/relay board. It is lost through the fuses and all the connections within the board. Make the comparative voltage measurements at the battery and dash gauge while shut down and running to get a baseline.
If the voltage at the dash gauge jumps up to around the high 13's or 14.0 volts when you fire up the motor, all is well and quit looking for problems you don't have. Our cars have enough real problems to deal with.