Check Engine Light and flat battery

[Disco4pilot]

Hi Guys

Had a strange thing happen to the Disco 4 3.0 today. Last week I drove home to Sydney from Lithgo parked the car in the driveway then left the car for a week. Everything was working fine doors closed and car locked.

My wife called me yesterday whilst I was still away and said the car had a flat battery. When I got home I tried to start it and yep it was dead. Checked it with volt meter and was around 10.5. I have a traxide dual battery system but the funny thing was the aux battery was still showing fully charged. My understanding was if there was something draining the battery the aux would also drain until the cutout voltage of the traxide. I think this is around 11.8.

I took out the second battery to take it out of the equation and charged up the main battery. It seemed to indicated fully charged quicker than I thought it would but I do have a pretty good charger (21amp) anyway it charged up fine and started the car no problem. Only issue is now I have the orange outline of an engine on the dash (check eng)...

I guess that when my wife tried to start the car with the flat battery it logged an engine fault. I think all kinds of msgs were displayed when she tried to start it.

Anyone have any idea why the battery would go flat when sitting for 7 days whilst leaving the connected aux battery fully charged (traxide systems leave them connected to a lower voltage than most other systems so it should have been at least down to 12 volts) and why a flat battery would cause a check engine light? Is there a way to clear the check eng light?

Thanks everyone

Pete

[Disco4SE]

Hi Pete,
How many Klm's have you done?
I had my main battery replaced at 80,000 Klm's. The dealer said that all sorts of fault codes were coming up and when they replaced the battery, everything was fine again.
They also commented that it wasn't unusual to replace the main battery at those Klm's if not sooner.

Cheers, Craig

[Disco4pilot]

It is a 2009 delivery but has only done 27000. I've only owned it for about 2000 so I have no idea if previous owner did lots and lots of short trips or if it was not used much. Trim condition points to not used much but I guess two years old isn't too bad for a battery in a car like this.

[101RRS]

With the fault logged and the problem fixed the check engine light should go after about 3 starts (cycles of the ignition). (maybe wait until the handbrake light goes out - should have cleared all electrical things that clear by then). If that doesn't work try disconnecting the battery again and when disconnected touch the two leads together to get rid of any stray voltages. Reconnect and see if the check engine light is still there (fault will still be logged). If it is then either it needs to go on the computer to check out what is going on or you have another fault there - maybe what caused the battery to drain in the first place.

Cheers

Garry

[Disco4SE]

It is a 2009 delivery but has only done 27000. I've only owned it for about 2000 so I have no idea if previous owner did lots and lots of short trips or if it was not used much. Trim condition points to not used much but I guess over three years old isn't too bad for a battery.
Mine is also a 2009 delivery D4 3.0 ???????

Cheers, Craig

[Disco4pilot]

Thanks Garry

That seemed to do the trick the light is now out. Thank goodness for that. I must not have waited long enough between ignition cycles as I'm sure I tried it a few times before posting.

The battery seems to be working fine now... I have started and stopped the car with very little driving with no problem. I might have to check the voltages at night and then in the morning to see if I have a slow drain or get a better amp meter. Has anyone checked the residual current draw when the car is asleep? I assume it is something so the smart key can be found and computer still runing. It would be good to compare to see if mine is excessive.

Cheers
Pete

[Graeme]

I had my main battery replaced at 80,000 Klm's.So mine will be OK at least until the end of the week.

[BobD]

So mine will be OK at least until the end of the week.

Maybe not, Graeme. According to the dealer's computer my battery has been replaced under warranty before I bought the car and it had only done 55,000 km when I bought it.

Bob

[Ivan]

Just had to replace the battery on my D3. Aparrantly it was the original battery at 7 years old and 130K kilometers!!!
Mind you mine is a V8 and I don't think they are as hard on batteries as teh diesels.


Ivan

[Rollin over]

My 2010 D4 3.0l had it's battery replaced around the 40,000km mark and I also have Tim's dual battery kit, which got me out of trouble a few times when the main battery was stuffed. Also the Dealer upgraded the software for the battery, know problem!

Cheers

P.S I always lock truck in shed sometimes for weeks at a time and no worry's when starting her up.

[Glynhouse]

My 07/D3 battery has 10/06 stamped on it, 95k on the clock have had it tested a couple of times, comes up down a little but O.K., at least they have not said that it needs replacing ?
But they do shake their head and say " got no right to still be going " I'm a bit on edge, might change it before we take off in the van for an extended trip.

DD

[Gords]

I must admit I am still fairly new to my 08 TDV6 SE D3 (absolutely loving it must say). I am a bit confused about all this talk about the need for a fault reader / clearer (not in this partictular forum so apologies for the slightly off topic comment)... surely most faults that occur can be left 'on ice' until you get to a dealer? My basic understanding is that most are just an error messge on the dash? Some admittidly can cause the supension to play up etc, but most are just a light if that?

However I then read Garry's comment...


Reconnect and see if the check engine light is still there (fault will still be logged). If it is then either it needs to go on the computer to check out what is going on or you have another fault there - maybe what caused the battery to drain in the first place. Garry

I presume by your comment that faults can result in battery drains? Might be another reason to get a fault reader if this is the case...

It's a pity that shorting the battery terminals cant clear the faults!

Thanks in advance for any light able to be shed on the above...

I will also be heading along to Gordon's brissie seminar later in the year just before I take the D3 through the Vic high country / lake eyre / across the simpson. Currently just getting as prepared as possible!

Cheers,
Rob

[Celtoid]

Hi,

I've a 2009 3.0l SE. I've had two batteries replaced under warranty, one a month after being fitted.

The symptoms for my issues were just the engine failing to start. All indications were normal and the engine cranked hard.

Apparently the car will do this, use the power to crank but has insufficient grunt left to turn the computers on.

LR stated that they have had all sorts of issues with the wet cell batteries and have now started swapping to something different...gel or something.

So far, so good.

Cheers,

Kev.

[SBD4]

Gords, the way I read it is that touching the cables together helps to reset the fault so that the car can return to normal operation(if the fault does not persist). The fault will still be logged and able to read by the dealer when next serviced.

[Graeme]

... surely most faults that occur can be left 'on ice' until you get to a dealer?My 3.0 D4 had an engine fault caused by either the 2nd turbo or its inlet tract isolating valve. The existance of the fault triggered low power mode (extremely low power!) and the only way to restore useable power was to clear the fault then quickly open and close the throttle many times to free whatever was sticking, with the fault re-occurring several times during the process until finally overcome. With the nearest dealer 200 kms away, if I couldn't clear the fault myself it would have needed trucking leaving me either without a vehicle or possibly a loan vehicle unlikley able to serve my daily purpose. In a way I was pleased that the fault happened then whilst near home as the diagnostic tool was unable to clear the fault in stand-alone mode due to a s/w bug, only clearing when connected to a PC. It now has the latest s/w with the bug fixed, so I'm told. (Faultmate V1.29b).

[Meccles]

I am having real issues with random battery drain on my 2009 TDV8 sport. Since July 2011 is has failed 5 times with random draining of battery. Two new batteries have been fitted, soft ware updated, new bonnet switch, left at dealers for a week for them to monitor. All to no avail. Wife drove to Brisbane, left it overnight, flat battery in morning. No solution in sight.

[Graeme]

I am having real issues with random battery drain on my 2009 TDV8 sport.You say random, but is there anything common in the lead-up such as only occurs after a long run?

[Meccles]

It has occurred after trips of between 35kms and 100+ kms. Car is daily driver so I gets a fair bit of use. I cna't think of any particular pattern or common occurrence prior to failure.