Battery problems

[Juliet Lewis]

My camper van has been fairly idle this year as I imagine everybody's has. I took it to Studland Bay a couple of weeks ago and met up with all my family. It was a great weekend but when I came to leave it wouldn't start. Admittedly I'd had the fridge on for two days and three nights but I'm sure this has not happened before. A friend came and rescued me with jump leads and when I got it home I charged it up outside my house. Today I went out for lunch to celebrate a friend's birthday, about 10 miles away. The van started fine and after lunch we had a rest in the van with the radio on for an hour. Then again it wouldn't start and we only got going thanks to two kind and helpful rubbish collectors who gave us a push. I realise I don't fully understand the batteries. For example are there two or three? Does the leisure battery need to be replaced every so often? Do the batteries operate separately from one another. I know I should have looked up all this stuff in the handbook but I'm not very good at understanding car mechanics and just kind of expect them to work. (I'm not proud of this!) My T5 is 6 years old and has quite low mileage. It got a full service and a clean bill of health just over a year ago and I was told it would only need another service after 2 years. I'd be very grateful for any advice about batteries and I will do my best to understand and not let this happen again.
Best wishes, Juliet (Just renewed my membership again after a couple of years).

 

[AlisonF]

Hi Juliet,
If the van has been unused for a while and you haven’t been charging the leisure batteries regularly on hook up at home, then they may be in poor condition and need replacing.

 

[Tom]

Juliet
Batteries have a life span. My 08 California’s leisure battery lasted nearly 8 years before replacing. The start battery if not being charged by the engine and not being used for a while can go down rapidly and I think this is your problem. Go to a tyre and battery centre and have them pressure load your start battery. Replace if needed.
Tom

 

[Loz]

The fridge and leisure batteries are independent of the starter battery so it’s this battery that needs charging up properly but may now need replacement if it’s not holding a charge after a good drive. you may also need to have it checked for anything that may be running it down when idle.

 

[WelshGas]

My camper van has been fairly idle this year as I imagine everybody's has. I took it to Studland Bay a couple of weeks ago and met up with all my family. It was a great weekend but when I came to leave it wouldn't start. Admittedly I'd had the fridge on for two days and three nights but I'm sure this has not happened before. A friend came and rescued me with jump leads and when I got it home I charged it up outside my house. Today I went out for lunch to celebrate a friend's birthday, about 10 miles away. The van started fine and after lunch we had a rest in the van with the radio on for an hour. Then again it wouldn't start and we only got going thanks to two kind and helpful rubbish collectors who gave us a push. I realise I don't fully understand the batteries. For example are there two or three? Does the leisure battery need to be replaced every so often? Do the batteries operate separately from one another. I know I should have looked up all this stuff in the handbook but I'm not very good at understanding car mechanics and just kind of expect them to work. (I'm not proud of this!) My T5 is 6 years old and has quite low mileage. It got a full service and a clean bill of health just over a year ago and I was told it would only need another service after 2 years. I'd be very grateful for any advice about batteries and I will do my best to understand and not let this happen again.
Best wishes, Juliet (Just renewed my membership again after a couple of years).

The engine, cab lights and radio, plus the sliding door if it is electric, all work from the engine battery, NOT the Leisure batteries.
When you charged it up, did you just plug in the Mains Lead on the California. If you did then you charged the Leisure Batteries, NOT the engine battery.
You either need to go on an extended drive , 100 miles or so to fully charge the engine battery or get a separate battery charger to charge the Engine Battery on its own.
Using the radio for extended periods of time can easily flatten the engine battery. Modern car entertainment systems are more than just a simple radio. Also every time you open the drivers door various electrical systems are switched on, high pressure diesel pump etc, so that you can drive immediately. All this can flatten the engine battery very quickly.

 

[Juliet Lewis]

I'm not sure which lead I plugged in but I imagine it was the Mains lead. Thank you very much for this advice. I'm not able to drive it 100 miles so I guess I'll have to buy a battery charger. Can you tell me exactly what runs off the leisure battery and what runs off the engine battery? I'm told there's also a third battery. Is it under the passenger seat? It confuses me. Thank you again.

 

[Juliet Lewis]

The fridge and leisure batteries are independent of the starter battery so it’s this battery that needs charging up properly but may now need replacement if it’s not holding a charge after a good drive. you may also need to have it checked for anything that may be running it down when idle.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Juliet Lewis]

Juliet
Batteries have a life span. My 08 California’s leisure battery lasted nearly 8 years before replacing. The start battery if not being charged by the engine and not being used for a while can go down rapidly and I think this is your problem. Go to a tyre and battery centre and have them pressure load your start battery. Replace if needed.
Tom

Thanks for the advice Tom.

 

[WelshGas]

I'm not sure which lead I plugged in but I imagine it was the Mains lead. Thank you very much for this advice. I'm not able to drive it 100 miles so I guess I'll have to buy a battery charger. Can you tell me exactly what runs off the leisure battery and what runs off the engine battery? I'm told there's also a third battery. Is it under the passenger seat? It confuses me. Thank you again.

The California SE has 3 batteries.
An engine battery under the bonnet that runs the engine, car lights ( headlights, parking lights and fog lights, brake lights and indicators ) as well as the lights in the driving cabin and the Dashboard radio system.
Two Leisure Batteries, one under the front passenger seat and one in the base of the rear wardrobe accessed from the boot space on the L side. The Leisure batteries run all the lights in the camping area, water pump, powers the fridge and the Diesel Parking Heater.
When you plug in the camping mains lead a battery charger starts up to charge the Leisure batteries ONLY.

 

[Scoobz1]

The California SE has 3 batteries.
An engine battery under the bonnet that runs the engine, car lights ( headlights, parking lights and fog lights, brake lights and indicators ) as well as the lights in the driving cabin and the Dashboard radio system.
Two Leisure Batteries, one under the front passenger seat and one in the base of the rear wardrobe accessed from the boot space on the L side. The Leisure batteries run all the lights in the camping area, water pump, powers the fridge and the Diesel Parking Heater.
When you plug in the camping mains lead a battery charger starts up to charge the Leisure batteries ONLY.

When you plug in the camping mains lead a battery charger starts up to charge the Leisure batteries ONLY.
Is this true for a T6 Ocean 2019 and does it not charge the starter battery after doing the leisure batteries in general ?

 

[Loz]

When you plug in the camping mains lead a battery charger starts up to charge the Leisure batteries ONLY.
Is this true for a T6 Ocean 2019 and does it not charge the starter battery after doing the leisure batteries in general ?

on the T5 the OP has.. T6 does provide a smaller charge to the starter battery as well.

 

[Hotel California]

There's so much diffrent opinions regarding the charging of the (3) batteries , T5 - T5.1-T6-T6.1 whatever you have , the most important thing is to frequent hook-up your Cali on 220v mains for 24h.
It's that simple !

My 2012SE with 8y old batteries had been sitting still for over 6 months in the beginning of the year and started without a problem .Frequent plugging it in 220v is what i do.

I've been assured by my dealer that on hook-up once the leisure bats are full there's a flow on to charging the starter battery. In my 8y experience i can assume this is so .

I never putted a charger on my starter battery .

 

[ArunAlec]

The California SE has 3 batteries.
An engine battery under the bonnet that runs the engine, car lights ( headlights, parking lights and fog lights, brake lights and indicators ) as well as the lights in the driving cabin and the Dashboard radio system.
Two Leisure Batteries, one under the front passenger seat and one in the base of the rear wardrobe accessed from the boot space on the L side. The Leisure batteries run all the lights in the camping area, water pump, powers the fridge and the Diesel Parking Heater.
When you plug in the camping mains lead a battery charger starts up to charge the Leisure batteries ONLY.

Am I miss understanding? From previous threads, I understood that you’d established that the hook up did provide a small trickle charge to the starter battery on your T5. I copied your voltage check of the ashtray socket and came to to the same conclusion, that my 2013 T5.1 did get a trickle charge.

 

[WelshGas]

Am I miss understanding? From previous threads, I understood that you’d established that the hook up did provide a small trickle charge to the starter battery on your T5. I copied your voltage check of the ashtray socket and came to to the same conclusion, that my 2013 T5.1 did get a trickle charge.

I was trying to keep it simple for the Op. Yes, there is a small trickle charge but it won't be much good if the engine battery is pretty flat to begin with which appears to be the case as even after driving it couldn't cope with running the radio for an hour.

 

[ArunAlec]

I was trying to keep it simple for the Op. Yes, there is a small trickle charge but it won't be much good if the engine battery is pretty flat to begin with which appears to be the case as even after driving it couldn't cope with running the radio for an hour.

Thanks.... thought I was losing it!

 

[Amarillo]

I have flattened my starter battery on one occasion.

Preparing to drive away from a campsite in Romania on the Orthodox Easter Sunday, I turned on the ignition to lower the front windows to remove the window vents.

I was then distracted by our campsite neighbours offering us a plate of scarlet shelled hard boiled eggs, matured pork fat and pickled pork rind. They then cooked us fried egg served up on a bed of butter wilted nettles.

After an hour with the air conditioning on and windows wide open the starter battery was dead.

Leaving the key in the ignition is fine for quite a long time. Leaving the ignition turned on for quite a long time is not fine!

 

[B J G]

As it doesn't show which model and Juliet refers to her Campervan I'm just curious as to whether it is an actual Cali or a converted van.
Could account for the engine battery problem. If I missed that info in my thread read -- sorry.

 

[HectorPascal]

I have flattened my starter battery on one occasion.

Preparing to drive away from a campsite in Romania on the Orthodox Easter Sunday, I turned on the ignition to lower the front windows to remove the window vents.

I was then distracted by our campsite neighbours offering us a plate of scarlet shelled hard boiled eggs, matured pork fat and pickled pork rind. They then cooked us fried egg served up on a bed of butter wilted nettles.

After an hour with the air conditioning on and windows wide open the starter battery was dead.

Leaving the key in the ignition is fine for quite a long time. Leaving the ignition turned on for quite a long time is not fine!

We have done the same and continue to do the same - or nearly. Distraction is so easy when the tell-tale dash lights are obscured by the seat (if you have swivelled it first).

It seems to me that VW could have incorporated some logic that would detect ‘ignition-on-but-no-subsequent-switch-activity’

When it happens and I nearly (or properly) flatten the engine battery, I call myself the very worst names I can think of in genuine self-disgust but it does not seem to stop it happening occasionally.

I guess it’s just one of those many Cali-owning things that you have to be mindful of to avoid needless damage, cost or humiliation.

Cali-owning can be quite humbling.