My car is dead!

[shuggy2005]

Hi Guys,

Just a quick summary:

Car has been suffering from a low battery, so every few days of no driving I need to jump the car to get it going. I checked the voltage on it and it was around 12v reading so I ordered a new one from the interweb.

I tried swapping it the other day later realised how much of a PITA the torx bolt really is, so I decided to leave the old battery in until I got something thin enough to get to the bolt, this is where the issue arose. Since then, my car has no power. No internal lights or lights turn on when you open the door nor does the cluster lights come on. Car doesn't even bother cranking and the central locking is off - basically no power anywhere. I have checked and re-checked the -ve and +ve leads I had taken out and I can't think for the life of me what is causing it.

Any ideas or help folks ?

It's a 1.8t Quattro if it matters.

Thanks

Shuggy

[arman123]

A long extension should get to that bolt it does not undo all the way you undo it and slide it across try have another go and fit the new battery and see what happens

[shuggy2005]

Hi,

Sorry, I realised I wasn't that clear. I managed to get an extension ratchet that was thin enough to slip in and change the battery over. The new battery reads 12.63v which seems to be fine (Exide Prem bat) however my car still has no power.

I am thinking maybe I took off the terminals in thw wrong order or something but I don't believe that should cause this issue.

[arman123]

Is there a fuse on the positive lead

[shuggy2005]

I managed to figure out what was causing the issue....... it was a 10mm hex nut!!

So I was going through other articles and one of the posts lit a light bulb over my head, I had done something that I thought would be fine but clearly wasn't.

As an FYI, I had dropped the nut that goes on the end of one of the terminals and it got stuck in a place where it's long gone. So I took a nut out of a spare terminal extension thingy that was not in use and put it on the battery terminal and thought nothing of it. Turns out that was the culprit - so I managed to get a spare and banged it in and hey presto, It's alive!

Thanks for the help!

[micheal balbrig]

Thats good,Just like in the film, short circuit.
The multimeter across the connectors may have shown up the power loss.