Dead Battery! (keeps happening)

[Dantes]

Same thing used to happen to my T3. In the end it seemed to be the leisure battery that was screwed and was drawing power from the main battery. I disconnected the leisure battery and all was fine. Never had a problem since. Currently hooked it up to a 105Ah leisure battery under the rock'n'roll seat and everything is cushdie. Hope that helps.

[chrisben]

They're keeping it overnight, should know what the problem is tomorrow hopefully ... the suspense is killing my wallet.

[chrisben]

Update.

Garage checked for leaks, seem slightly baffed, have come to the conclusion that it's probably an intermittent alternater. (Does this sound possible?)

They offered me the option of installing a battery Kill switch, which would stop any leaks when the motor is turned off and/or Changing the alternator.

I opted for both, work being done tomorrow (£250ish altogether including pick up and drop off). Does this sound reasonable?

[Plasticman]

Dont sound reasonable to me,
why not change the batteries again and oh yes some wiring and the ignition switch keep going till the customer has had enough!
Sorry but throwing bits at it at your expense is not the way forward,
Are they so cluless as to not be able to find the cause of an overnight discharge , plain lazy.plain stupid or what
Mike (sorry but you did ask)

[chrisben]

Cheers, this is exactly why I asked on here.


It was on it's third battery in the last few months (all on waranty).

I have till tomorrow to decide what to do, so I can suggest other alternatives. Its been discarging slowly over a few weeks too. If that makes sense.

Get new battery, drive it roughly 4 times over a few weeks, leave it a few days, battery flat. (this has happened twice.)

[Plasticman]

Well first I would have nothing new fitted, full stop,
To replace a part you must first confirm its not working,
Theres others on here with a more comprehensive electrical knowledge. but..........................
Here's what I would do, get the van home, have you got off road parking? get a multi meter and check voltage of your batteries, make a note of these with engine running, switch off wait 15 mins and check( with engine off)
remove earth lead from your leisure battery and check both voltages again, then report back here.
Can you put the main (starter) battery on charge for the day? then remove charger wait 15 - 30 mins and check voltage again,
This will tell you if you alternator is charging your batteries, it will tell you what charge is in them, given this information you can now check the voltage of your main battery every hour if you like and note if and by how much its discharging, same applies to leisure battery but as you have disconnected the earth this will only show if it is holding a charge,
dont reconnect it at this stage as we need to sort the starter one out first, will explain later.
Also make sure all Items are switched off,

Hope above makes sense, cheap multimeter under a tenner, charger 20ish, it really is easy to sort if you are methodical.
by rthe way, where are byour respective batteries located
mike

[chrisben]

Both batteries are behind the front seats.
I've pretty much got this far before with an RAC man, who concluded that it was a dodgy battery (this was 2 batteries ago). But I'll give this a go tomorrow and report back.

The original flat battery was caused by leaving a parking light on. Not sure if this makes a difference

thanks for you patience.

[Plasticman]

No thanks needed, with these vans its patience or no van
If you would do as asked and note the voltages it will give all the info that is needed for this stage and cost you nothing.
There are other things I would do but if we could do it this methodical way it will help identify the cause which is what you need to do.
It will be worth it in the end.
mike

[Plasticman]

How you get on
mike

[dazzzer1]

just fixed our van, poor charging was down to either bad earth dodgy starter connections, re did all the connections and replaced the earth strap and its a ok(fingers crossed).

another one you may miss if there is a drain is the relay in the box in the engine bay, im sure its a pre heater or something, it stuck in ours one time and continually drained the battery.

[chrisben]

I slightly wimped out and dragged a friend round to help. (didn't spend 300 quid with garage). After an afternoon of messing about it turned out that the leisure battery was draining itself and then draining the main battery, so disconnected it and will figure out source of problems next weekend. Borrowed a multimeter off him so will do more tests.

thanks.

[Plasticman]

Good work, which is one of the reasons I asked you to disconnect the leisure and leave it off,
If you confirm you are charging the main battery (now you have meter) then good, now measure the leisure voltage and put it on a charge in the house/garage or whatever, remove in the morning and check volts, leave and hour and recheck, fair chance the battery is goosed and no other fault.
now that you have done this much what do you reckon of the garage that were going to fit you a new alternator and battery?
mike