New Ocean - leisure battery problems

[Jolberg]

Hello all
I've had my 68 plate Ocean for less than 2 weeks now. I've had it from delivery mileage so essentially a brand new vehicle.
We've been away for 3 days on and off hookup and 2-3 days after getting home (with no use of the van) the leisure battery was on 0%. I charged it up via hook-up and driving. On Thursday night it was 100% charged. On Sunday afternoon it was 0% again. The van had not been used in between these times.
I've checked everything I know and can't find anything that could be drawing from the battery.
Has anyone had or heard of this problem?
Could there be a simple explanation or something that I've missed that could be draining the batteries?
Any help of suggestions are really gratefully received.

 

[jts46]

Have you anything plugged into the inverter socket? If you have this could drain the batteries.
Parking heater programmed?

 

[Jolberg]

Nothing plugged in. Haven't looked at heater programme and haven't programmed it myself. Will check when I get home. Could that drain the batteries that quickly?

 

[Pineweasel]

You can view the current being drawn on the control panel - does this show anything?

 

[Jolberg]

Whenever I've looked it just shows -0.2 which I believe is the control panel itself.

 

[MattBW]

Do you have access to a volt meter so you can check the voltage of each battery individually?

 

[Andy]

Plug in hookup & charge for a couple of days & test again. If no good get it sorted under warranty. Should have been charged up by dealer before you collected it.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

 

[Jolberg]

Do you have access to a volt meter so you can check the voltage of each battery individually?

I do have a voltmeter I think but I think I read somewhere that because of the type of battery you need a specific type of voltmeter to get a true reading.
I'll can see what I measure though.
Are they easy to access?

 

[Loz]

You say charged up "driving and on hookup" but IS the hookup charging? do you see the plug symbol on the display when the hook up is plugged in?

You may have the common issue of the loose plug in the charger under the wardrobe.

 

[Jolberg]

I guess it must be charging as got to 90% charge on hookup only then topped up to 100% after driving 40 odd miles.

 

[MattBW]

There should be a plug symbol and an increased voltage if its charging from EHU

 

[Pineweasel]

Regardless of how it is charging, if they are plunging to 0% after just a few days of non-use with no apparent current draw you have a serous problem, so I would be heading back to the dealer.

 

[flying banana]

As above, sounds a bit more serious dropping to zero. check no phone chargers etc plugged in, even without a phone on charge.
is your fridge turned off ? they are very quiet running. maybe it's on and the orange light isn't on ? check all your lights are off. take the bulb out of the glove box and tailgate if not sure wether they are going off when shut
anything plugged in the sockets anywhere ?
you can get 12v plug in voltmeters for a couple of quid on ebay etc.
also 1 more check I can think of is make sure you actually have 2 leisure batteries fitted. 1 under the wardrobe and 1 under the passenger seat. they are wired in parallel so 1 missing would still give you a 12v system like the Beach has.
good luck.

 

[Brianandjoy]

We had this problem with our California which was 2 years old when we got it from the dealer,the batteries would charge but drop 10 % a day with nothing on.If the leisure batteries hadn’t been kept charged by the dealership they can gradually discharge then when they are empty of charge they will sulphate up making them useless.We argued under warranty and got the batteries changed.

 

[TripleBee]

Is the van a showroom van? Maybe they kept it in the showroom without charger, and now the batteries are internally short circuited and drain internally?

Head back to the vendor and let them sort it out under warranty.

 

[Jolberg]

Thanks all for your comments and suggestions. Van was pre-registered so was sat around not doing much for a few months. It certainly hadn’t been driven much. Sounds like that could be the issue. Booked in at dealer on Wednesday. Fingers crossed a straight replacement of batteries will sort.
A frustrating start to our California ownership!

 

[TripleBee]

I can understand that, but when they fit in brand new batteries, you'll be glad you have new ones, and not already 1 year old ones.

 

[Pineweasel]

Van was pre-registered so was sat around not doing much for a few months. It certainly hadn’t been driven much. Sounds like that could be the issue.

My van was pre-registered in Dec 2012 and sat around until April 2013 when I took delivery. The batteries have never given me any trouble and are still in fine shape, so I doubt that’s the problem.

 

[MattBW]

It's quite common for the batteries not to be maintained, as per teh manual you should put the van on hookup once a month for 24 hours for best battery condition. Some dealers don't remember to do this and it only takes the control panel to be left on for the batteries to go below 11v and get damaged.

Worth getting them to check especially if you still have warranty.
My van was a demo so I was lucky it was driven a little in the 3 months it was a demo (300 miles) enough to keep the battery healthy.

Weirdly I did have battery problems which I thought was due to battery condition and it turned out to be a loose connection nothing more.

 

[Jolberg]

It's quite common for the batteries not to be maintained, as per teh manual you should put the van on hookup once a month for 24 hours for best battery condition. Some dealers don't remember to do this and it only takes the control panel to be left on for the batteries to go below 11v and get damaged.

Worth getting them to check especially if you still have warranty.
My van was a demo so I was lucky it was driven a little in the 3 months it was a demo (300 miles) enough to keep the battery healthy.

Weirdly I did have battery problems which I thought was due to battery condition and it turned out to be a loose connection nothing more.

I find it really strange that the batteries could be so vulnerable to quite easy mistakes to make. Surely they should design that our with a bit more intelligence in the charging system and maybe automatically turning off things.
The manual does say that they are deep discharge protected. What does this mean?

 

[Jabberwocky]

Eeek, after reading above and thinking about my own activity or lack of I just had to check all was well........!
We have had our Cali for two and a half years and used it as an everyday driver (so the max time without use would be a week or so). All has been good to date with many nights away some with hook up some without.
We have never religiously, although have done so on odd occasions, charged the L batteries for 24hrs on a monthly basis.
Had a quick check this morning - nothing switched on except the control unit.
No engine running, no hook-up.........12.7v, 0.2amps, 90%
No engine running, with hook-up.......13.7v, 14.0amps
After 2hrs, no engine running, with hook -up.......14v, 8.8amps

To me my charge numbers look fine.......any comments?

Will report some more numbers later.

 

[Jabberwocky]

+1hr, no engine running, with hook-up......14.2v, 6.6amps (Voltage up a tad, amps going down)

 

[MattBW]

Sounds fine to me, the amps should slowly drop as the batteries get closer to full.

 

[Jolberg]

Hi all.
So the dealer replaced one of my leisure batteries only today. I did protest a bit saying that if the capacity was dropping to zero within 48 hours of being fully charged surely they both must be shot but to no avail: "only one of them showed a fault so we only changed one of them".
I'll see how things go in the coming days.
I'm now of course paranoid about what's going on with the batteries and saw something on the panel I didn't quite understand. Whilst driving at low speed and revs with the current reading -15A. As I understand it a minus number means load on the leisure batteries. Where would such a big load come from just driving with nothing switched on that it powered from the leisure batteries? Does the leisure battery charge the engine battery in some circumstances? Otherwise any idea why that load would be seen?

 

[TripleBee]

Normally the 2 battery systems are separated. The engine battery won't deliver current to the leisure, and vice versa.
This is while driving. What happens with the engine off? What happens if you connect to the mains?
This number doesn't seem right to me.
This is not just a battery (or 2 batteries) being idle, but this seriously is draining somewhere.

I can't relly compare to mine as I have an old California, without recuperation or battery manager that keeps the batteries, or at least just the engine battery never fully charged.

Every time I start the engine, the voltage goes up to 14,1 - 14,4 V, + xx.x A. Only when being connected to the mains on a 2 weeks vacation, when I drive, the leisure batteries don't charge anymore, because they are full. Then I suddenly see -0,6A - 0.0A.

This really is a strange thing that will need some research from VW. And don't take the answer that this is normal, unless all the other T6 owners have the same values like this.

I don't even have this number with fridge, lights and aux heater on at the same time.
Fridge is about -3,5 A, lights about -1A, aux heater more or less -10A when heating up, not containing the heat.

Here I don't see the aux heater light on, so this number is unreasonable.
But it must be something draining in the circuit, and not the batteries itself, because that is not monitored. This draining is from the batteries, through the invertor/control module, through an electrical consumer to the ground.