For the past few months I've had a noise from the engine bay that I just kept ignoring. I thought it might be my turbo oil feed leak returning but oil consumption whilst not great, wasn't that bad. Then last week the over-running pulley fell off the alternator.
I sourced a new alternator and planned to fit it at the weekend. But not before I had to drive home 50 miles from where I was working on Friday. It was night so I needed headlights but they would only draw around 10A and so with a 70Ah battery I /thought/ it should be good for a few hours as long as I didn't have blowers, screen heaters or stereo running. I was very wrong. 'Managed about 35 miles towards home with 2 /cold/ starts before low battery light came on and then it died completely after another mile with the steering assist completely disappearing. So I understand now that the power steering is electric so that is probably consuming something but where does it all go? EPS motors online seem to be around 35A. Is EPS the biggest draw? What else might be significant. I think headlights are actually quite a small drain by comparison to other components. I'm curious to know what else there is. Any thoughts?
I sourced a new alternator and planned to fit it at the weekend. But not before I had to drive home 50 miles from where I was working on Friday. It was night so I needed headlights but they would only draw around 10A and so with a 70Ah battery I /thought/ it should be good for a few hours as long as I didn't have blowers, screen heaters or stereo running. I was very wrong. 'Managed about 35 miles towards home with 2 /cold/ starts before low battery light came on and then it died completely after another mile with the steering assist completely disappearing. So I understand now that the power steering is electric so that is probably consuming something but where does it all go? EPS motors online seem to be around 35A. Is EPS the biggest draw? What else might be significant. I think headlights are actually quite a small drain by comparison to other components. I'm curious to know what else there is. Any thoughts?