Well, I have an update on the situation with our car which we bought as a one owner ‘Approved’ Honda from a dealer. We are about to go on a trip South from Orkney next week and can drop in at the dealers, firstly to get the mysterious service book fully filled in (another story on another thread!) more importantly to see what they say about the battery. From December when we bought the car the stop/start has never worked, in spite of some long trips. On Wednesday I put the stabilised power supply on the battery and left it until Thursday morning, at which point the charge had gone down to about 100 milliamps - about as good as it gets from past experience with bike and car batteries. It was a very bright dry day so no auto lights, no wipers needed, aircon off, heater blower on number 1. About the best set of circumstances. Drove out to Finstown, about 13 miles and pulled into a lay-by, no stop start and battery symbol showing. Drove into Kirkwall, another 7 miles or so and parked the car stop start worked for the first time ever.
It worked quite a few times after that so at least the actual system works. Not used the car since so will see what happens next but I can’t see the dealer doing anything about it, so I think we will just have to wait till the batter fails. Genuine one seems to be about £170, £200 direct from Yuasa. Years ago I sold our Citroen Berlingo van - it’s still here in Orkney and still with original battery on a 55 plate and 140k miles.
Ian