Flat Battery Club

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Looks like I have just joined the "Dead Battery Club"... I started the car earlier today and all was well. Just now I went out to the car - in the garage - and noticed the tail lights were on. When I looked inside the Battery Low warning was on. I checked the Voltage at the starter posts and it is 5.7 Volts.


Looks like I call Land Rover Assist in the morning.

Cheers
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I called Land Rover Assist and they organised for the RACV Battery van to come. The battery was at 3 Volts in the morning. The technician tested the battery and pronounced it DEAD.

He replaced the battery and all is good. All done under warranty.

Cheers
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[JDNSW]

They put it under warranty when you presumably left the lights on?

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Kinda hard to leave the lights on in the garage...

I started the car at around 11:00, ran it for around 20 minutes at idle. All fine.

Took the dog out for his after dinner walk at around 1840, leaving through the garage. All fine.

Got back around 1900, entering via the garage, and the DRLs and tail lights were on. Strange... Looked at the dash and it had the "Low Battery - Start Engine" message. I tried to start the engine. Nothing. Checked the battery Voltage at the jump start terminals - 5.7 Volts. Checked it at the Anderson plug - 5.7 Volts. Hmmm...

Checked the car later - around 2100 and the tail lights are still on.

This morning I checked the Voltage - 3.1 Volts, no lights.

Called Land Rover Assist. Battery stuffed.

I have been charging the battery via a multi-stage battery charger about every 3 weeks.

Battery replaced under warranty - car 9 months old, 11,200 kms.

Cheers
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PS Unfortunately, the new battery only has a 24 month warranty.

[JDNSW]

So why were the lights on? some sort of malfunction, or does it put the lights on to draw your attention to the fact the battery is flat?

I'm lost!

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I'd like to think it is intentional, but then... Turning the lights on does hasten the flattening of the battery, but not by much. And impressive that the tail lights work at 5.7 Volts, but then, they are LEDs.

It's a Land Rover Thing?

Cheers
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The only thing I can think of that may have caused the flat battery is I plugged in a Bluetooth OBD2 scanner and left it in...

Cheers
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[JDNSW]

I suspect you may have found the culprit - I left my dashcam plugged in (not on), and after three weeks not using the car (I am staying at home as much as possible), the battery was down to about 10v - which won't start the Isuzu from cold!

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In my case to 5.7 Volts in 8 hours... Very power hungry dongle.

Cheers
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[Ferret]

Probably not the dongle directly, it couldn't draw that much power so quickly. Maybe just the presence of the dongle didn't let all the ECUs shut down.

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I'm not plugging that thing in again, anyway...

Cheers
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[stevo]

have mine plugged into a solar panel via trailer plug working away and only running car every 3rd weekend or so seems to be working fine.

[BobD]

I'm not plugging that thing in again, anyway...

Cheers
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GAP IID dongle left plugged in quickly flattens the battery in my ex L405 TDV6, so that is very likely the culprit. Its not a problem if you unplug it when you shut down the car! It also did the same in my D4 at Katherine Gorge Caravan Park, which caused a fair bit of angst. It is quite hard to get enough power from a Ranger's Toyota, even when combined with the Yellow Top second battery, to start it when the battery is at 5V.