LEISURE BATTERY

I have never heard that you should once a month remove your battery or hook it up and charge it. Sounds rubbish to me. As long as its isolated it should be fine. Least thats my experience. Had our van coming up 15 years and Im only just on my third battery. Its often left over winter for months. They generally last 6-7 years.
 
barryd said:
I have never heard that you should once a month remove your battery or hook it up and charge it. Sounds rubbish to me. As long as its isolated it should be fine. Least thats my experience. Had our van coming up 15 years and Im only just on my third battery. Its often left over winter for months. They generally last 6-7 years.
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I agree, but it doesn’t look like I’m going to get anywhere with the warranty.
 
barryd said:
I have never heard that you should once a month remove your battery or hook it up and charge it. Sounds rubbish to me. As long as its isolated it should be fine. Least thats my experience. Had our van coming up 15 years and Im only just on my third battery. Its often left over winter for months. They generally last 6-7 years.
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There is an expectation that the battery gets charged fully on a reasonably regular basis though, don't you think?
never being charged properly is not treating a battery properly. Kind of similar to never doing an oil change on a car and expecting a new engine when it fails.

you are on just your 3rd battery in 15 years? how do you charge YOUR batteries while they are being used in the summer months?
 
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wildebus said:
There is an expectation that the battery gets charged fully on a reasonably regular basis though, don't you think?
never being charged properly is not treating a battery properly. Kind of similar to never doing an oil change on a car and expecting a new engine when it fails.

you are on just your 3rd battery in 15 years? how do you charge YOUR batteries while they are being used in the summer months?
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90% solar I would say. Odd bit of hookup, or driving. We tend to stay in one place for fairly lengthy periods also. The van is never ever left charging with nothing being used in it either.
 
carol said:
I agree, but it doesn’t look like I’m going to get anywhere with the warranty.
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I bought an engine battery for mine from my local motor factors, I bought an expensive one with a four-year warranty and two years later it failed, I was told that a 4yr warranty battery on a motorhome was only covered for 1yr because we stand for long periods
 
Tezza33 said:
I bought an engine battery for mine from my local motor factors, I bought an expensive one with a four-year warranty and two years later it failed, I was told that a 4yr warranty battery on a motorhome was only covered for 1yr because we stand for long periods
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I know a lot of people knock Halfords. But I know from one source who has a collection of cars, and who always buys his batteries there, that they never quibble about warranty claims.

It is not directly relevant but I worked on contract at Halfords for a long time in the late 80s and they were a great company to work for, consequently I have a bit of a soft spot for them. I buy items there regularly all round the country and always find the stores spotlessly clean and the staff polite and helpful.
 
Tezza33 said:
I bought an engine battery for mine from my local motor factors, I bought an expensive one with a four-year warranty and two years later it failed, I was told that a 4yr warranty battery on a motorhome was only covered for 1yr because we stand for long periods
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That would be correct for a shop-bought camper with no solar or a proper onboard smart charger, I dont need to remove any batteries.
Now lets look at cars, no solar but those that run every day get a 95% charge, not qt a full one as the alt backs of near the end of charge, and a little short.
Now the same car left standing for weeks on end does require an outside charge, many a car left at airports wont start after a few weeks of sitting, esp if the battery is getting on a bit in life.
 
One of the big factors when laying up a MH esp over the winter is the fact that although everything in the van appears to be 'switched off' many items are still connected and drawing low current. On my van I have the webasto, the main control panel, the inverter, the solar controller (yes they have a small current draw when not charging) and the TV aerial amplifier which I always forget to turn off🫤 all drawing a small current, but they all add up and cause a significant load and lead to me plugging in EHU for a couple of hours every week.
If you've definitely not got an alarm, tracker etc fed from the leisure battery and topping up is a faff I suggest disconnecting a lead from one of the battery terminals when laying up for a prolonged period of time.
Merl
 
'kin show off! :ROFLMAO:
I have a clunky master switch under the driving seat but it still doesn't isolate everything which seems stupid. The webasto is taken dircetly off the LB and although switched off it still takes about 40mA. Coupled with the Webasto's annoying 'safety' feature of an automatic drain down when the temperature drops below 6 deg. Problem is this time of year the temp basically drops through the 6 deg barrier every night and hence it goes through the drain down process at least once a day and the battery takes a right hammering!
Merl
 
merl said:
One of the big factors when laying up a MH esp over the winter is the fact that although everything in the van appears to be 'switched off' many items are still connected and drawing low current. On my van I have the webasto, the main control panel, the inverter, the solar controller (yes they have a small current draw when not charging) and the TV aerial amplifier which I always forget to turn off🫤 all drawing a small current, but they all add up and cause a significant load and lead to me plugging in EHU for a couple of hours every week.
If you've definitely not got an alarm, tracker etc fed from the leisure battery and topping up is a faff I suggest disconnecting a lead from one of the battery terminals when laying up for a prolonged period of time.
Merl
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I just pull the fuse on my solar controller, isolate the leisure battery and whip off the negative terminal on the cab battery. Thats it. Completely isolated and its fine like that for months if need be. Better to use them though if possible I think for the vans sake rather than the batteries.
 
Having had our previous MH nicked off of our drive I've now got an alarm/tracker fitted to this one (Stable door etc etc) so a complete 'shut down' isn't an option for me.
Many folks have solar panels and expect that to keep the batteries topped up over winter but a long period of dull weather and/or a layer of snow on their panels means no charge whatsoever, the fact that their solar controller draws quiescent current and ironically they are now actually worse off!
Merl
 
barryd said:
I just pull the fuse on my solar controller, isolate the leisure battery and whip off the negative terminal on the cab battery. Thats it. Completely isolated and its fine like that for months if need be. Better to use them though if possible I think for the vans sake rather than the batteries.
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Why pull the fuse on solar,thats bonkers, leave it to charge the batts up.
 
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