Short battery life 2002 Camry

[thommo]

Got a 2nd hand Camry for our daughter back in December. Battery started playing up (car would not start, then recently the clock kept re-setting to 1:00 every time she turned it off/on). I stuck it on the charger for a few hours (trickle charge) which improved the starting for a short while, but then it went bad again.

Swapped the battery with a spare NRMA one I had today & it started well, clock was behaving . I noticed the old one (a Marshall battery) is only a year old (May 2011 date on it)!

She drives it probably 5-10 times/week, mostly short trips of just a few kms but the odd 20-40km drive every few weeks, so it's not like it sits idle forever.

I looked for glove-box/boot lights not switching off, but the boot light is fine and the entire glove-box light mechanism has been removed (which rang alarm bells - perhaps the batteries had been draining for previous owners and they removed this light thinking it was the cause?)

I notice it has one of those (allegedly entirely useless????) electronic anti-corrosion devices on it. Wondering if that could be the problem?

Otherwise, I guess it's off to the auto-electrician to get alternator checked, or see if there is some other issue.

Any thoughts welcome. Cheers.

[alan.chalkley]

my 2200 93 camry had this problem because it was only used for very short drives (less than 10km) , so we fitted a new 630 cca battery and it now works fine with the extra battery capacity.

I checked the alternator charge rate with a multimeter and it is okay.

However with the amount of rain and moisture at the moment , electrical drain on the battery is worse.

[Ozzcaddy]

I live in the inner city suburbs of Sydney, and only do short drives. During those short drives I may stop and restart the car maybe 2 or 3 times, and driving 10 k's is not going to recharge the battery to full. And if the car is not driven for a couple of days, no problems starting but the radio clock needs resetting. So I disabled the security code, so I don't have to go thorugh that procedure before resetting the clock and pre-set stations.

[bigVAN]

driving 10 k's is not going to recharge the battery to full.

It is recommended that you drive at least 30mins for the battery to recharge.

[thommo]

Might have solved this problem by disconnecting the electronic anti-corrosion device. The car seems to be starting better now on that first start of the day.