flat battery

[deano7]

I have a 2015 Coupe 5 months old. Wed to Sat its in the garage as l, m working. Saturday gone, when to get it out for a trip up the gloriuos Northumberland coast. Dead as a dodo. Jaguar Assist come out.Check battery.Only 4 volts in it.Jump start and away to dealers.Dealer charges it up overnight, Get it back Tuesday. Apparently l, m not doing enough miles when l, m out? Minimum l do is 40 to go and see my daughter. Was told if the battery drops to 50%, no matter how many miles you drive, it won, t charge back up to 100%,you have to put the battery on charge overnight? I find this very worrying. What happens if l go on holiday for a month and the car won, t start, am l to ring Jaguar Assist every time this happens, and away to the dealer again.I don, t think so.Has this happened to anyone else? Or any thoughts on the dealers answer? Cheers

[daytona650]

I'm not suprised. The battery management is poor.

I resorted to a Ctek battery charger which the car stays on when not in use.

I had all sorts of gearbox messages and other worrying messages, all because the battery was low.

18 months in and no problems since :)

[Jagalot]

This doesn't seem right.

I use'd mine for fairly short journeys just over a week ago then left it for a week whilst on holiday. No problems at all.

[Arne]

My car sat for almost 5 weeks waiting for me to pick it up (second hand - one years old, 7.800km) from a garage in Germany. It was not started during those weeks, nor was it charged in any ways. When I got there, it started without any problems.

During the months I have had it in Norway, it has been used for several short trips and some longer, and it has been a week or more between many of those trips. No problems at all.

I have recently installed a connection in the trunk directly to the main battery, so that I can use a Ctek battery charger during Winter. I have used it once, just to make sure it works ok. It took aprox 18 hours to fully charge the battery, and at that time the car had not been used for over a week.

[The Jagster]

My first warnings about any potential battery capacity issues came right at the beginning when I visited my local dealer to take a look at an F-Type. The car on display had a flat battery....hmm...I thought to myself, but then passed it off as just a bit of lazyness on the dealers part.

Fast forward a few weeks and I pick up own F-Type and it's at a time when i'm not around enough to really drive it any distance, but I am doing the 'showing the car to a friend or relative' thing that we all have to go through at the beginning and each time the engine gets fired up for just a few minutes and the hood gets put through it's paces etc..
So...Then I begin to think about the battery condition, so to put my mind at rest before I leave the car for a week, I wire up a Ctec charger to the main battery and give it a bit of energy to help it along just in case....Well....the battery indicator showed the battery to be in fairly poor state of charge so I left it doing it's thing for about 6 hours and then check it's progress. Still a long way from being any where near satisfactory according to the display reading...I'm getting concerned at this point because the charger is not not normally having to work this hard ( It's a fairly high capacity Ctec charger so should be up to the job...works fine on my boat batteries).
The long and the short of it is that it took more than 24 hours to get the condition up to scratch. That gives me the impression that these batteries need a lot of tlc and need to be checked fairly regularly. It's good for batteries to be cycled, but not good for them to be having to work hard when they are fairly deeply discharged. They won't last long with a life like that...
...Sooo...I plan to hook up the Ctec on a regular basis and see if it makes a positive difference.

The Jagster2015-08-14 10:09:32

[Geminii]

This is quite an interesting subject and another reason that I would not use Stop/Start Econo mode in very heavy traffic!

The original post stated that the battery read 4 Volts that is obviously way below any 'normal' reading.

A 12v car battery would probably read 10.7 volts when deemed totally Flat.

If the car was used on Tuesday and left Wed to Saturday in the garage then theoretically in 4 days it has used a capacity of 95 Amp/Hours. Which is amounting to over an amp being continuously drained from the battery while shutdown. Lights staying on in the boot space used to be a not uncommon mystery load.

The ratio between current drawn and amp/hr rating of the battery is not linear, smaller currents and the battery will last proportionally longer.

I have used my F type on short trips very much less than 40 miles. Run it in/out of the garage and then parked it up in full alarm + mode for 3 weeks of holiday and it has not, as yet, let me down.

I am surprised that a modern SLA battery at 50% charge rate, is being claimed by the manufacturer, as being non chargeable by the car. It may be slow but it should still be able to restore charge unless modern electronics are less efficient than days gone by.

If you haven't got a standing load of something staying on that shouldn't or the alternator charge circuit is working with no dull red lights then I personally would suspect a duff battery or connection.

I am not sure what rated Ctek charger you guys are using but the average output is about 5 amps so a flat F type could take 20 + hours to fully recharge all depending on temperature, battery condition and initial state.

Hope that helps.

Dave

[The Jagster]

It does help. Thanks Dave.

[deano7]

Thanks for all your replies lads. Very helpful. Deano

[BirdingGal]

I'm only driving my V6S at the weekend, a trickle charger is something I am contemplating, £120 ish for the Jag supplied one. Question - Can this be connected without having the boot open? Aka with the car still locked, I'm prob being lazy and not reading the manual........

[scoobydoo]

Hi,

I have the Jaguar battery charger/conditioner and run an extension lead into the boot of my Coupe. The cable exits quite happily out of the right hand side and the powered tailgate closes without an issue.

Regards,

Scoobydoo