Bad Battery??

[expjoe]

I have a 2009 Ford Fusion with 45,000 miles on it and it is highway driven daily 60 miles round trip. I went to start it yesterday after work and it would not turn over and required a jump. Drove home fine, no charging lights came on at all. Got home, shut it off and it would not start again. Checked it with a volt meter and it read 10.5 volts. performed load test and it shows weak battery. However the car starts now (slow turning over) and the battery indicator light shows red. I am thinking it has a short and the intense heat we have had here has contributed. Any other things I should consider? I did check the output of the alternator and it is within spec.

[aleekat]

If it's readiing 10.5, replace it.

[expjoe]

Originally Posted by aleekat

If it's readiing 10.5, replace it.

I took it to the auto parts store and they tested it and everything checked out ok. I did take it out of the car and put it back in, so I am not sure if i had a bad connection either. If it happens again I will know it has a bad plate or at least a short somewhere in the battery. Again no charging lights came on or anything.

[CnlK]

Having a similar problem, car wouldn't turn over two mornings in a row. Charged battery and brought to advance auto. Their test showed battery was "marginal", not healthy and not poor. Replaced battery as it was almost six years old. Car does have a parasitic draw of .11 amp or 110 milliamps. Does anybody know what an acceptable parasitic draw is? Thought 20 milliamps was acceptable. Charging system seems OK, 14 volts under load.

Given somemore time, the draw drops to 8ma, We'll see if new battery solves the problem.

After 6 days all is good.

[TaurusKing]

20 sounds good, of course open the door the pcm wakes up for a few secs, draw will go up. I'm thinking maybe 30 would be like max. Anything that stays up higher consistently should checked. Do that by pulling fuses one at a time. Had to do that on my kid's 98 Taurus. A cassette tape stuck in the factory radio ended up pulling 75-80 ma all the time, weird. I think the eject mechanism was powered on by the stuck tape. Ended up replacing the whole unit, pretty easy found one on ebay.

[DeltaP]

Originally Posted by expjoe

I took it to the auto parts store and they tested it and everything checked out ok. I did take it out of the car and put it back in, so I am not sure if i had a bad connection either. If it happens again I will know it has a bad plate or at least a short somewhere in the battery. Again no charging lights came on or anything.

How could they have tested it "OK" if it was reading 10.5 v?Battery has to be fully charged for a proper test.