Went to take the car out today for the first time in a couple of weeks and the electrics were dead. It has a new battery, about 4 weeks old. It started normally last time I went out, no alternator light. Today the battery was totally flat, reading less than 1V across the terminals with a multimeter.
When I hooked up some jump leads from the battery to a spare battery there was sparking at both the positive terminal on the car battery and the negative which I attached to one of the engine lifting eyes. The sparking at the positive started to melt the battery casing. Fortunately I got the leads off before any serious damage or fire.
I assume there is a short somewhere but as car electrics might as well be a foreign language to me, I wonder if anyone can confirm this? Would there be an easy way to trace this (remembering I know nothing about electrics) or is this a job for an auto-electrician?
Sorry for the numpty question and thanks in advance.
Ross
When I hooked up some jump leads from the battery to a spare battery there was sparking at both the positive terminal on the car battery and the negative which I attached to one of the engine lifting eyes. The sparking at the positive started to melt the battery casing. Fortunately I got the leads off before any serious damage or fire.
I assume there is a short somewhere but as car electrics might as well be a foreign language to me, I wonder if anyone can confirm this? Would there be an easy way to trace this (remembering I know nothing about electrics) or is this a job for an auto-electrician?
Sorry for the numpty question and thanks in advance.
Ross
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