Honda civi vti coupe 2000 163k,
My battery is a few years old and recently due to the car being idle for many months I thought it was dead and decided to change it. When buying the new battery I showed the old one to the auto parts shop to ensure size matched etc and he said it had a sulfur type smell and this damage could be caused by alternator which is overcharging.
I went ahead and changed the battery car seems to be ok though I’ve only driven it one day. I’ve also been testing it with a multimeter.
When Ive done battery tests in the past with 2 different cars whenever I connected the multimeter and started the car I see the voltage drops(on ignition) and then quickly goes up to 13-14 volts etc. this is of course normal.
However with this new battery when I do the test I notice the multimeter shows the volts changing a lot more slowly rather than quickly as compared to when I have done the test on the same and other cars before with the same multimeter.
Since changing the battery I have one two occasions not even saw the volts go above 11 after starting but that could be due to me not holding the multimeter terminals firmly since subsequent test do go 13-14 plus volts etc suggesting the alternator is ok.
But once again it just seems 4 times slower than normal.
Is this normal and if so why the lag or is it indicative of a problem elsewhere eg alternator even though it does go up to above 13.5 volts which I think means alternator is ok.
Thanks.
