Aux battery short circuit

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Pei8

New member
Joined
Feb 3, 2018
Messages
3
Hi,

Im from Sweden and have owned a few i-mievs...
Never had a problem with them....

But now I am interested in one in an auktion....
1 company had owned it before...
Last year only 700km between "inspections"
So the car most stod still.....

Now it wont start, they write in the ad... no light at all in the "cluster" that shows battery bars and gear ya you know What I mean.

The auktion is far away and I called them and a guy told me they had tried a booster on the aux batt But nothing happened....

In 17 hours the auktion ends....

What Do you guys think?
Short circuit in aux batt??

Will it Maybe start up after a new battery or is there a fuse on the positive terminal or something else.....
Car is a 2011/1
20000km on the clock...

Runaway or buy??☺️☺️

Hope to get som Quick answers...

Thanks a lot!

Best regards Peter from Sweden
 
There is a fuse (acutally several) on the positive aux battery terminal, plus there is a separate fuse block under the hood and another under the dash.

i would try to buy it at auction, but have an upper limit price in your head before you get carried up higher than you want to go.

If the main pack is totally drained, then it is not worth it. Was the car in a flood or anywhere near where sea water may have risen up to the bottom of the battery pack--a flood or seawater car is not worth consideration, everything electrical will be destroyed.

Putting a booster jumper on a dead or shorted 12V aux battery won't be able to get the car to go to READY--the proper test is to remove the old aux battery first. The miev is very sensitive to the 12V and won't start if it is too low.
 
Peter, welcome to the forum.

See that kiev made some very informed comments.

From the symptoms, as you correctly assessed, you're facing a dead 12v battery which totally immobilizes the car. It is normal for this battery to die if the car is not used for a couple of months. If it's been sitting dead for months, it's quite possible that there is also an internal plate-to-plate short in the battery, but...

"...they had tried a booster on the aux batt But nothing happened..." This is a tough one, because without actually measuring the voltage we just don't know, as the unknown 'booster' may not have been able bring up the voltage sufficiently for the car to light up.

With everything turned off, the main battery pack just sits there and I would expect it to be ok unless it was totally discharged - we just don't know.

Sorry, insufficient information for making an 'informed' decision.

After all, it is a lightly-used company car so no reason to suspect foul play.

Personally, I would take a chance and make a really low bid and see what happens. You may get a bargain, or a boat anchor.

Good luck, and let us know what happens.
 
Thank you kiev and Joes!

We dont have an issue with flooded cars here in Sweden. Its very rare.
Last "inpection" for it to be legal on the road in Sweden (every year,if its not brand new) Was carried out 2017/5.... After that I dont know nothing....

If it was left in turtle mode for 10 months??
Will the pack take charge??

I have a Citroën C-Zero today and I will check how it looks and If I can see any fuses...
If I win I will bring my battery and perhaps some fuses and hope to be lucky:)

The price now is 47000sek plus 3125sek to the auction.

In Sweden they start at the dubble price.. cheapest at 104900sek but Sometimes you can make private good deals for around 70000sek
So its starts to be a lot of money for a broken car....


Thanks for your help
 
It's not fair if they start the auction price already set too high. Maybe walk away from it.

You have to cover yourself for risking to buy damaged goods. Assume the pack is bad and the best you could do would be to sell off some parts, although almost all of the electrical parts (ECUs) are not useful to anyone else due to the VIN coding. Nobody has figured out how to crack the Mits coding as yet.

So there is the motor and gearbox, suspension parts, tires and wheels, interior and trim, etc. Used stuff sells for 10 to 25% of the new price, so tally up what could be sold to recover your cost, and that would be my top bid.
 
It could be as simple as a bad 12 volt battery. Both of my i-MiEVs have been sitting for a while to keep them off the salty roads. I went to start Bear the other day to find the 12 volt battery sitting at 7 volts, but due to the cold, it wouldn't immediately take a charge. Since I have one of those "smart" battery chargers, it kept shutting off due to no amperage, so I had to turn on the marker lights to get it to take a charge. Almost half an hour later it finally started taking a decent charge.
 
I didnt buy it :)
It ended at ca 70000sek and there were also a broken mirror and some paintjob to do....

The auction started at 500sek

I had the highest bid to 46500sek

I have bought 2st that worked for less so this one wasnt for me..... crazy money at these auctions sometime.....

Thanks for the help!
 
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