Thread: Low battery warning

Hi Richard, and need to know a bit more about the state of your batteries before you left the D4 parked up for 2 weeks.

The SC80-LR will help discharge your batteries over a long period of time, but if you had fully charged batteries before you parked the D4, it would take at least 4 weeks before the batteries were discharged to 12.0v.

Then at 12.0v, the SC80-LR would turn off and your batteries should then take weeks more to discharge down to 11.7v.

So even if your batteries were fully charged, something has caused your cranking battery to continue to discharge.

This is not uncommon and is usually an indication of limited driving time, not just before you parked the D4 for the 2 weeks but for a long period of time before that.

If this is the case, you will probably do your battery a big favour if you can give it a few charge/float cycles with your battery charger.

To charge your batteries properly, you need to allow the battery charger to fully charge your batteries and then leave the charger in float mode for 8 to 10 hours, before disconnecting it.

If you can do this each night, ( even when you are driving your D4 every day ), for a number of times, you will not only fully charge the batteries but will improve their condition as well and this can be quite noticeable.

If you have been having sluggish starts, prior to conditioning the batteries, you should notice, after a few conditioning charge cycles, that the motor, even on the coldest mornings, is starting better that before.

NOTE, a small current capacity charger is better than a large one. While the smaller chargers take much longer to charge low batteries, the tend to do a better job at fully charging and conditioning batteries.

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi Richard, and need to know a bit more about the state of your batteries before you left the D4 parked up for 2 weeks.

The SC80-LR will help discharge your batteries over a long period of time, but if you had fully charged batteries before you parked the D4, it would take at least 4 weeks before the batteries were discharged to 12.0v.

Then at 12.0v, the SC80-LR would turn off and your batteries should then take weeks more to discharge down to 11.7v.

So even if your batteries were fully charged, something has caused your cranking battery to continue to discharge.

This is not uncommon and is usually an indication of limited driving time, not just before you parked the D4 for the 2 weeks but for a long period of time before that.

If this is the case, you will probably do your battery a big favour if you can give it a few charge/float cycles with your battery charger.

To charge your batteries properly, you need to allow the battery charger to fully charge your batteries and then leave the charger in float mode for 8 to 10 hours, before disconnecting it.

If you can do this each night, ( even when you are driving your D4 every day ), for a number of times, you will not only fully charge the batteries but will improve their condition as well and this can be quite noticeable.

If you have been having sluggish starts, prior to conditioning the batteries, you should notice, after a few conditioning charge cycles, that the motor, even on the coldest mornings, is starting better that before.

NOTE, a small current capacity charger is better than a large one. While the smaller chargers take much longer to charge low batteries, the tend to do a better job at fully charging and conditioning batteries.

Tim,
Thanks for the reply.

Prior to leaving the car we had just returned from a long trip so go plenty of run. I did a full charge to float mode prior to leaving the car as well.

I believe the battery may have gone into float mode on the first attempt to charge yesterterday, after leaving the car for two weeks, but the timer had turned off for awhile before I checked it.
I re connected the charger, a CTEK MXs 5 amp , and left it until it went into float mode again. I have disconnected it now.

From what you say I should do this a few times and leave in float mode for 8-10 hours.

I had planned to leave the charger on connected to a weekly timer before I left but buggered it up, see my thread on leaving the bonnet open.

I will do some more recharging over the week.

A question, is it reasonable that the car would get into this state after two weeks. I was wondering if it is due to one of these devices I have connected.

Peter Snieg installed the traxide unit and tekonsha so reckon they would be ok but am concerned about the anti rust device because when Peter did the install of the traxide unit and tekonsha he found that the LR guys had wired it up incorrectly.

Richard

Hi again Richard and something is definitely not right.

Your batteries should have been at at least 12.3v and the SC80-LR should still have been on.

Something is drawing power after the motor is off.

You will need to do some testing to find the problem device.

Do you have or have access to a clamp meter?

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi again Richard and something is definitely not right.

Your batteries should have been at at least 12.3v and the SC80-LR should still have been on.

Something is drawing power after the motor is off.

You will need to do some testing to find the problem device.

Do you have or have access to a clamp meter?

Tim,
It seems like it.
I don't have a clamp meter unfortunately. Being a bit of dunce with cars I think I may take it to an auto electrician or to LR as they seem to be helpful.

I will take some readings with my volt meter over the next few days and see if there is a significant drop.

May get a clamp meter as well, not sure how to use one but have two sons who are sparkies who do. Trouble is that they are over 1000km away.

Richard

Richard,if I havent driven my MY14 for 2 weeks I also get the low battery warning,I too have the Traxide DBS.
There is a electronic update for the MY14 that was published somewhere here,mine falls within the vin range,first service due early august,will see if it makes any difference.
I got a Jacar ciggy lighter plug volt meter,it seems its charging well on long runs,ALL my trips are long runs.
Andrew

Originally Posted by LandyAndy

Richard,if I havent driven my MY14 for 2 weeks I also get the low battery warning,I too have the Traxide DBS.
There is a electronic update for the MY14 that was published somewhere here,mine falls within the vin range,first service due early august,will see if it makes any difference.
I got a Jacar ciggy lighter plug volt meter,it seems its charging well on long runs,ALL my trips are long runs.
Andrew

Andrew,
I will have to check it out.

I got my car in Feb 2014, have to look up the vin
I just had a service a couple of months ago, so you reckon they would have applied it then but yea never know.

Richard

Richard, here's the details from the other thread.

TSB: LTB00667v2 (or LTB-00667-NAS-1)
Discovery 4 / LR4 (LA)
Model Year: 2014
VIN: 698741-726591

"Due to gateway module (gwm) software issue, the instrument cluster and/or eco stop/start, fails to function and displays, intermittently, Battery warning message and warning lamp."

Regards,
Scott

Originally Posted by LRD414

Richard, here's the details from the other thread.

TSB: LTB00667v2 (or LTB-00667-NAS-1)
Discovery 4 / LR4 (LA)
Model Year: 2014
VIN: 698741-726591

"Due to gateway module (gwm) software issue, the instrument cluster and/or eco stop/start, fails to function and displays, intermittently, Battery warning message and warning lamp."

Regards,
Scott

Yep
I am in that vin range.

I will go ask LR but my problem is real as the main battery had discharged below 12 so something is draining the juice out of it.

Richard