Flat battery

I have had two flat battery problems with my D4 after being away for 5-6 week periods.

The first was a year ago. Couldn't even open doors. Called road side service, Mondial, who replaced the battery without charge. But a few months back starting became a little sluggish and at service LR, Austral, replaced the battery under warranty - the previous replacement battery CCA was undersized.

Returned from 6 weeks o/s last week. "New" battery was dead flat, again couldn't open doors. Called Mondial who responded via Allianz who I presume they have contracted out battery issues. After some trials and tribulations, including calling in a second service vehicle which had equipment with sufficient capacity to start the D4, I was underway again. Allianz reckoned the battery was at 2v.

Took the vehicle straight to Austral who checked the battery and said it was OK for charging. When I got home again I put the battery on a recondition charge with my Citek 7000 and to date it seems to be performing OK.

I have a Traxide dual battery system in the vehicle. It is set up so that the battery is in the cargo compartment and when not required is removed and the cable and Anderson plug are rolled up and stored in the jack stowage area. This was the case when I was away.

Austral considered that the dual battery system was the likely cause of the problem (although when I asked them about this in the first instance a year ago they said it shouldn't be a problem) and said that whilst in day to day running wouldn't cause problems, if left idle for some weeks it could drain the main battery. They suggested that disconnecting the red connector on the cable leading to the rear of the vehicle would resolve the problem. On reflection this doesn't make sense if the auxiliary battery is removed and in any event I would have thought the the dual system would protect against discharging the main battery.

Drivesafe, can you comment on this? Are there any checks I can do to ensure the system is not at fault?

Disconnecting the thin ground wire from the controller (I think it's brown on mine) will disable it so any current used to sense voltage will be turned off.
You could install a small switch or a couple of quick connectors to it.

Hi Kiwi and if you had a fully charged battery when you parked the D4 for the 5-6 week, the SC80 would have taken 3 to 4 week to discharge the cranking battery ( when only one battery is in the D4 ) down to 12.0v.

At this point, the SC80 turns off and then draws about 15ma and would take at least another 50 days to discharge the battery down to just above 11.6V and you could still start the D4 with this battery voltage.

Now the problem with the figures above is that it does not cover the power used by your D4 for it’s own housekeeping.

So could the SC80 be responsible for flattening your battery, yes but there is, as you can see, a little more to it than a simple answer ( or excuse ).

I would suggest to anyone, whether they have a dual battery system or not, to take the negative terminals off all batteries in the vehicle if it is going to be left for that length of time.

Hope this is of some help to you Kiwi.

Thanks guys. After my first experience I had intended to disconnect prior to going away again. However as often happens in the last minute rush somethings get missed. Not again, I hope.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rufusking

Disconnecting the thin ground wire from the controller (I think it's brown on mine) will disable it so any current used to sense voltage will be turned off.
You could install a small switch or a couple of quick connectors to it.

---

Yep, good one rufusking, by putting a switch in the brown earth wire or Green/Yellow earth wire ( depending on which isolator you have ).

When you turn the switch off, you will completely shut down my isolator and disconnect the batteries at the same time.

JUST DON'T FORGET TO TURN THE SWITCH BACK ON AGAIN, WHEN YOU WANT THE ISOLATOR TO OPERATE!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi Kiwi and if you had a fully charged battery when you parked the D4 for the 5-6 week, the SC80 would have taken 3 to 4 week to discharge the cranking battery ( when only one battery is in the D4 ) down to 12.0v.

At this point, the SC80 turns off and then draws about 15ma and would take at least another 50 days to discharge the battery down to just above 11.6V and you could still start the D4 with this battery voltage.

---

Tim does the USI160 work the same way?

Can you put a switch in this to turn the 160 off in the same way as the 80?

Cheers

Hi Disco4pilot and with the user selectable switch in the In-Cab module, if you set the switch towards the LED, the USI-160 will shutdown ( turn both relays off ) when the common voltage of the batteries drops below 12.6v, and the USI-160 will then only be drawing about 15ma.

Your batteries self discharge at a higher rate than 15ma.

So if you are planning on leaving your D4 parked up for long periods of time, simply set the switch towards the LED.

If when you come back to your D4 and find the cranking battery has gone flat, flick the switch away from the LED and then back again and you will now be in Emergency Jump Start mode and you should be able to start your motor off the auxiliary battery.

If you are planning on leaving any vehicle parked up for a month or more, I still recommend you take the neg lead of all batteries in the vehicle, no matter what vehicle it is or whether it has or has not got a DBS fitted.

With the neg lead removed I assume you will need to use the key in the passenger door to lock and unlock. What happens to the alarm system when it runs down?

Hi rufusking and correct me here if I’m wrong but there is no backup battery in the D3 or D4 alarm, so it’s not a problem.

If you have an after market alarm fitted then you need to have a way around it.

I thought I read somewhere that there was, I'm happy to stand corrected.