159 Flat Battery! And door lock query?

[Victor Lee]

Hi all,

Just want to share wifey's flat battery experience yesterday. 

Our 159 3.2 is only 2.5 years old and we just did a faultless trip to Alfesta (Orange, NSW) and back.  Yesterday morning, started up well and good.  Yesterday arvo in Chadstone shopping centre ... dead as as dodo.  Apparently the instrument lights were flashing like Christmas tree!

Only just had enough power to central lock all the doors.  Now here's another interesting point ... how would you lock the doors on a 159 if there is no electrical power?  You can extract the manual key from the starter "key" and lock the driver's door from the outside, but how do you lock the other three doors?  There are no "lock knobs" (whatever u call them!) on the inside door trim!

Anyway, I reckon it's pretty poor that a battery has failed in 2.5 years.  And we don't have extra electrical gadgets that will draw extra power (amps and the like) and the external lights automatically turn off when the key is removed!

The RACV man (Total Care...which I bought before the trip to Orange...indicates my confidence level  ) says the alternator was fine but battery was definately dead.

Anyone else had similar experience in their Alfas?  Or perhaps just our bad luck with a dud Alfa battery?  If it is the former, then other new Alfa owners should have their batteries checked!

Cheers

Victor

[Paul Gulliver]

Victor,

I had the same issue with my August 2006 159 2.2 JTS earlier this year. Unlocked the car to go to work, key in ignition them nothing. However as you noted the ensuring lightshow on the dashboard must have been using enough current to power a third world country. As there was no advance warning (ie slower crank speed etc) I think the moral of the story is to replace the battery at 2 / 2.5 years because no matter how good the battery is it will fail before 3 years 

[alfagtv58]

That sucks....however, on this thread Doug says that a battery should give you about 3 years life, after that you're on bonus time.  That surprised me at the time, but given Doug's history in this industry.....who am I to argue!!

 

[Victor Lee]

We'll see how long the RACV battery lasts for!

Anybody has views on the door locks?  (Or is there something in the instruction manual that we've missed?)

Cheers

[Evan Bottcher]

We've had two battery failures on the 156. First was i think the original battery after about 6 years. Second was a faulty replacement (subsequently replaced under warranty). Both times the full laser light show christmas tree on the dash, accompanied by clicking under the bonnet. Both times there was still enough power to lock the central locking. Very little warning. I had noticed a slight hesitance to turn over the day before but thought i must have been imagining things. They seem to last pretty well here in aus really.. I used to replace batteries on our 33 every 18 months in the uk.