Thread: D4 flat battery......again.

Originally Posted by oldsalt

Craig,
locked garage notwithstanding - if your insurance Co. finds out that you "leave" your keys "in" your car they will drop you like a hot spud in the case of a claim .... even from a locked garage !!!
cheers

I hear you mate. Comes from living in Courts in non built up areas.
Actually brought the keys inside last night.
Cheers, Craig

All, just a thought. When the D4 "wakes up" I assume that involves heating glow plugs?? Surely that take a fair wack of juice from the battery. The computer is probably programmed to kick the glow plugs every time the door opens in preparation for us pushing the start button... dunno, just guessing.

I also thought that the random "failing" pushing of the start button may have been related to the glow plugs not being ready?

Originally Posted by oldsalt

Craig,
locked garage notwithstanding - if your insurance Co. finds out that you "leave" your keys "in" your car they will drop you like a hot spud in the case of a claim .... even from a locked garage !!!
cheers

Also once I stopped for a leak in the middle of nowhere, P38a decided to activate the central locking all by itself.... now I always take keys form the car!!

Originally Posted by mickyd24969

All, just a thought. When the D4 "wakes up" I assume that involves heating glow plugs?? Surely that take a fair wack of juice from the battery. The computer is probably programmed to kick the glow plugs every time the door opens in preparation for us pushing the start button... dunno, just guessing.

I also thought that the random "failing" pushing of the start button may have been related to the glow plugs not being ready?

Very good hypothesis, it would be good to get some expert knowledge on that one. I thought most modern diesel engines no longer used glow plugs?

Originally Posted by mickyd24969

All, just a thought. When the D4 "wakes up" I assume that involves heating glow plugs?? Surely that take a fair wack of juice from the battery. The computer is probably programmed to kick the glow plugs every time the door opens in preparation for us pushing the start button... dunno, just guessing.

I also thought that the random "failing" pushing of the start button may have been related to the glow plugs not being ready?

I don't think that is the issue with my V8 D4.

Have you checked the battery voltage when you stop? If you have as much off as you can turn off in the D4 I would be surprised if it goes flat that quick. I have run my fridge for 8 hrs in a locked car during a 35 deg day and not flattened the battery still able to restart and no warnings. I believe the 3.0L D4 also does not always charge the battery and the electrics aim to minimise fuel usage by only charging when coasting etc and happily let the SOC of the battery drop significantly the V8 may do the same. I have no evidence to support this though as I have the 2.7 D4.

My battery went flat on our trip away last month. Woke up one morning ,and the electrics were doing a wobbly. Rang Land Rover assist , and it was jump started with a diode compatible jumper lead.
They could not explain why the battery went flat.
The answer at the time was who knows ,with a shrug of shoulders.
I kept the battery on charge each night till we got home.
Than I didn't bother.Guess what two days later flat battery!!
It turns out that some of the battery's can develop an intermittent lose cell that naturally shorts out. Land Rover replaced the battery

Hi guy's I was talking to my dealer mechanic about this a couple of weeks ago and he mentioned of a few people who have complained about the battery going flat whilst camping.
He said each time you wake up the car (open door) the computer goes into overdrive getting ready to start, this uses (his words) a **** load of power and can take up to 15min to fully power down.

Do this a few times and your battery is flat, the solution he recommended was to get some solar panels and connect them to the battery, the other clients have apperently done this with good results.

As for the glow plug theory, I don't think they come on when in this mode there is an icon on the dash that lights up when the glow plugs are active, i've only seen it once when starting the car on an early morning at -3 degrees, the icon came and starting was delayed by about 5 seconds.

Cheers Paul