Flat battery on new Beach

[zeratul]

Our new California Beach has arrived, I drove 120km with it to bring it home and it's been sitting at home since then. I thought that would have given a solid charge to both the batteries.
On tuesday night our youngest had been playing in the drivers seat for a couple of minutes.
Wednesday evening, the doors wouldn't open with the key. Turned out the battery was flat.

I found out the headlights were in 'On' instead of 'Auto'. But that's the only reason I can think of that may have caused the flat battery. We don't have a radio yet and no interior lights were on. All doors were closed.

Could that have been the cause or are they supposed to turn off after a couple of minutes/hours?

Anyway, I thought "no problem, I'll use the hookup cable for the first time to charge both the main and leisure battery".
I connected the cable that came with the Beach (regular power plug on one end, hookup plug on the other) and plugged it into the 230v at home. However, even after 30 minutes, the doors still wouldn't open! I thought this was supposed to also charge the main battery? The connection seemed okay, even though I had to push the cable quite hard and did not find a way to "lock" the cable in place (as it's written in the manual).
Or was I using the wrong cable.. ? I don't understand.

Anyway, then I charged the main battery the old fashioned way with a battery charger, and 5 minutes later, everything was working again. It's been charging at 4amps for over 8 hours now, still 4 amps and it's supposed to go to < 1amp when the battery is full.

Could it be that my battery is dead/faulty? What do you think?
Any tips on figuring out what I'm doing wrong or what is wrong?

 

[calikev]

A lot of people get confused. If you plug into the mains it will charge
The leisure battery and keep the van battery topped up it will not charge a flat van battery.

 

[zeratul]

It happened again this morning. Battery at 8volts, engine wouldn't start.
I had it hooked up for a day after two weeks of non use. Now three days later, mains battery is at 8v.

I find it hard to believe that the hookup keeps the engine battery topped up.
Or perhaps my battery is faulty?

 

[owen_h]

I cant offer any advice on the hookup charging as my Beach is pre hookup.
But It does sound like either the main starter battery is faulty / damaged (from being completely discharged) and wont hold a charge or there is something on your Cali that is drawing current while you are parked up.
VAG group vehicles often have a feature that if the indicator stalk is left in either the 'turning right' or 'turning left' position and then the keys are removed the sidelights on one side of the vehicle are left on. Is this a possibility?
Hope you get it sorted quickly

 

[zeratul]

Thanks for the reply. This could indeed be it. Our youngest (2y old) loves to play in the van when we are showing it to friends and he then pushes all the buttons. Perhaps he did it again.
I'm checking the battery voltage every day now. I jumpstarted it from our BMW X3 yesterday, drove 45minutes with it and the voltage was at 12.71v. It hasn't dropped this morning.
Yesterday when the engine wouldn't start, it was at 8v. After charging for 2hours with a car charger, it was at 11.3v but that was not enough to start the engine.
Anyway I'm learning. I will try to have to have the car radio rewired to leisure battery as well.

 

[andyinluton]

Could you try turning everything off disconnecting the battery & then as you reconnect it see if you get a spark, fairly inaccurate way of doing it but if you get a large spark it shows that there is still a large load being drawn from the battery. No spark very low or no load.

 

[MattBW]

It sounds as if you have a battery that isn't holding its charge. 8v is incredibly low, that suggests to me it needs replacing, I doubt it can be saved if it has been that low..

 

[zeratul]

A month later and it hasn't happened again. It's clearly the parking light that caused it!
So to turn on the parking light, drain your main battery and immobilize your car, all you have to do is pull down or up the left lever for blinkers in a parked state. 24h later it's all empty...
With little children near the front of the car, this will happen automatically.

What a stupid and way too accessible feature.. can it be disabled?

It's very hard to notice the head light is on on one side when the days are as long as they are now and the car is parked outside.

 

[MattBW]

Did you manage to save the battery? Pretty amazing if you did

 

[zeratul]

Yes. It's holding charge now and it starts the engine fine.

It would be really cruel if a single accidental touch of the blinker's peddle could destroy your battery.

 

[MattBW]

We just lost a brand new 110ah leisure battery in my GFs camper because she left something switched on. The batteries on the Cali must be a lot better technology.

 

[estresao]

It happened samething to me two weeks ago in my Cali Beach.... under 11v... totally flat.

I've learned interesting things recharging/recovering the main battery, but maybe the most important is that in the Cali Beach the hookup Do NOT charge the main battery, it only charge the leisure one.

The battery is an AGM one, so is able to manage deep
cycles, and that's maybe is because we were able to recover it.

After that I've bought a battery charger for this battery and it's into my trunk's toolbox..... just in case.

Now thinking in install one more leisure battery and a solar panel with the posibility of charge all batteries. Also thinkink in connect the headunit to the leisure batteries.

 

[estresao]

Errare humanum est..... The Cali Beach DO charge also the main battery.

I've just pluged my Cali Beach on hookup and, initially 14.5v in the leisure battery and 12.5v in the main one, but after a little while the main battery started up reading 13.1v

 

[WelshGas]

Yes, as has already been stated. On Mains hookup the Leisure battery is charged, but the Engine battery is only trickle charged.
The Indicator Stalk activated Parking/Sidelight is a feature found on many vehicles nowadays. After all the vehicle is designed for Adults who use the function rather than abuse it.