Battery woes

[Raenstoirm]

MY car was working perfectly till a few weeks ago. In the morning I would park my car at work with the battery bar somewhere in the middle. When I would get in the car to go home i would have 1 red bar. I talked to my dealer and they said it was a recall. Put it in today for the "recall" only to find out it is a recall for the classics and not mine. The service manager essentially told me I was stupid and there was no problem (needless to say I am finding another dealer to try and fix it again). The problem with the one red bar is the way the car drives. I feel like I am driving a bus. It is heavy and sluggish and clucky. Has anyone heard of this problem? Better yet has anyone found a solution to this problem?

[efusco]

Someone else here mentioned a similar issue. I don't recall what the outcome was. You definately need a different dealer if they treat you like that. Too bad you didn't check here, we could've told you about the recall. I worry that you have a short or an inverter issue or something.

Are you experiencing the same problem every time you park the car or only at work? Or is it just intermittent?

[Raenstoirm]

It is only a few times a week and the location/time of day is completly random. I cont seem to find a pattern in it.
I think the post you are thinking of is my first one on the subject. I posted before the "recall" about the issue. I did look up the recall here, but the person I spoke to at the dealership told me that a new recall was put out for the 2004s as well. I believed them...stupid me.

[DaveinOlyWA]

it sounds to me that your traction battery is bad. it isnt holding a charge. the reason for the intermittent behavoir is that you only have the problem when the battery happens to be at the low end of SOC.

you park it, the battery slowly drains. if you dont park very long, you dont notice a problem. or if you are near the top end of the charge range, you might not notice a problem.

unfortunately, unlike a normal car where the battery is kept at full charge as much as possible, your battery may be anywhere in the SOC range with you having little or no say as to where it is.

you say there is no rhyme or reason to the failures. i think you should start checking the SOC just before you shut down. track the number of bars shown at shutdown, the time the car sits, the number of bars at startup and any problems you have.

i think you will see your problems happening when you only have 3-4 bars as opposed to having 6-7.