Battery confusion

deccauk · May 14, 2015

I've just today picked up my Cali from a private seller. I'm a newbie owner so clearly I've a lot to learn, but at this stage, I have a concern.

During the handover, the seller demonstrated a lot of the features, including the control panel showing a readout of current consumption with the fridge on and the battery charge level, which was 90% at that moment.

Having driven home 160 miles, had a meal and went to have another play with the vehicle, the battery charge was showing 60% when I turned the heating on.

Am I misunderstanding what this battery percentage is really telling me, or is the battery at end of life (and not disclosed by the seller)?

I've read the manual and would have thought that after a 160 mile trip it would be fully charged.

Martin · May 14, 2015

If you are saying it dropped to 60% when you put the auxiliary heater on, this is quite normal as it uses a lot of power on initial start up. When you turned the heater off, did it go back up to 90%?

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deccauk · May 15, 2015

Just checked again. Battery is at 60% before I do anything, and drops to 50% when I turn the heater on. Both battery symbols on the control panel display show partially full batteries.

Doesn't look good to me. Might there be a charging problem with the alternator?

Martin · May 15, 2015

A couple of questions:

1. What age is the van?
2. When you turn the engine on do you see a 'G' on the control panel?
3. When you plug in the hook up lead, do you see a plug sign on control pane?

deccauk · May 15, 2015

Van is a 2011 180ps DSG with 29000 miles.

No problem with the alternator - checked with a multimeter and also get a G on the display.

After running the engine for only a minute or two, the battery level displayed 100% but after turning off the engine, quickly dropped to 70%, and displayed -0.2A current consumption with everything turned off. Is this normal?

Martin · May 15, 2015

Sounds like everything is working OK, I would put it on hook up for 24/48 hours to give the batteries a really good charge just in case the previous owner let them run down over the winter