Guest Joe90 Posted April 10, 2015 Share Posted April 10, 2015 Oddly I one of the best cars I had was a Toyota Avensis............as long as I remembered to constantly check the oil lever when as was known at the time by Toyota with the 1.8 vvti engine had a problem with the piston bores that meant the engines literally drunk oil around 40,000 miles onwards...................Toyota said it was within normal range, even though many cars ended up in the scrap yard with seized engines, guess those folk didn't think Toyotas were bullet proof eh ? ;-) As for paranoia, one trip to France after asking my local garage to check my front pads and assuring me they were fine found me a few weeks later with terrible scraping noises, and a 244 Euros bill to replace the pads in Libourne France, so I do know where your coming from, even though probably the best way of getting rid of the stressing ( that I do ) is to get rid of the van altogether. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracker Posted April 10, 2015 Author Share Posted April 10, 2015 Joe90 - 2015-04-10 10:24 AM As for paranoia, one trip to France after asking my local garage to check my front pads and assuring me they were fine found me a few weeks later with terrible scraping noises, and a 244 Euros bill to replace the pads in Libourne France, so I do know where your coming from, even though probably the best way of getting rid of the stressing ( that I do ) is to get rid of the van altogether. We had a similar expensive experience with rear brakes in France a few years ago and as for de-stressing maybe leaving the forum would be one way - what you don't know you can't worry about! On the recommendation of a friend who has one and finds it handy I ordered one of these yesterday - I'll let you know how I get on and if it contributes to making batteries one thing less to worry about! http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006B3MU62/ref=pe_385721_37986871_TE_item Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartO Posted April 10, 2015 Share Posted April 10, 2015 Our leisure batteries (Exide Gels) will be ten years old later this year and I'm sure they can't go on much longer, yet they still serve perfectly at the moment. They've led a sheltered life but even so they must be at fairly high risk of failure some time soon. We're off to Peterborough next weeked so three or four nights off EHU should tell us if we're kidding oursleves. I'll take some torch batteries and the generator, just in case! I think I'll probably replace them before we go abroad next month rather than take the risk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracker Posted April 10, 2015 Author Share Posted April 10, 2015 StuartO - 2015-04-10 3:20 PM Our leisure batteries (Exide Gels) will be ten years old later this year and I'm sure they can't go on much longer, yet they still serve perfectly at the moment. They've led a sheltered life but even so they must be at fairly high risk of failure some time soon. We're off to Peterborough next weeked so three or four nights off EHU should tell us if we're kidding oursleves. I'll take some torch batteries and the generator, just in case! I think I'll probably replace them before we go abroad next month rather than take the risk. If my battery load drop tester comes before we leave for Peterborough you would be welcome to use it to check your batteries if you wish? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartO Posted April 10, 2015 Share Posted April 10, 2015 Generous of you but as Brambles has posted, simply using the batteries (and seeing the effect on battery voltage on the Schaudt panel) will tell me if they are still up to the job. I looked at the listing for your battery discharge tester. It seems to test high current demand (up to 1,000 CCA) which is not relevant and also (unless I misunderstood) apply a sustained load of 100 amps, which might stress a failing battery somehow. A tester of that type will however tell you whether a starter battery is still up to scratch - but them turning over the engine to start it on the battery tells you that too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aandncaravan Posted April 12, 2015 Share Posted April 12, 2015 Most of the old style Car Drop/Load battery testers we have seen simulate a very heavy Starter Motor current draw by applying a big load and measuring how much the battery is able to supply. It is a huge load designed ONLY for Car Starter batteries. A 'real' Leisure battery is not designed to supply a lot of current for even a few seconds, just a few amps over a long period of time. If you 'Drop' test a proper leisure battery, even if it was good before it won't be afterwards. StuartO is right, it is likely to hasten the end of even a moderately able Starter based 'Leisure' battery. However, we would suggest that the test you should be doing is not testing how much power the battery still has to deliver or how long it holds its charge, but how much load it places on the charging systems. Batteries past their best can place a huge load on the charger resulting in some very costly expenditure. Replacing a Battery when you are away in France is hassle, but not a big deal. However, if your battery kills the Alternator or the 220v Charger unit then it can work out very, very expensive. Some Charger distribution units cost up to £680. Alternators fitted by Mercedes in the UK from £700. You can imagine that trying to book it into the Local French dealership with a 2 week waiting queue might be a bigger hassle than the actual monetary cost? As a Battery ages it places an ever increasing load on the charger (both Alternator and 220v mains unit), they will do their best to struggle in keeping a poor battery charged, but the inevitable will happen. We repair and remanufacture charger units from all manufacturers from around the World. They are almost always destroyed by a poor battery. We also rebuild Alternators, again it is a strain from the batteries that always causes the damage. Fifteen years ago our technician was rebuilding Alternators that had done a very high mileage and worn out the Brushes/Bearings. The majority were rebuildable to as good as new In the last few years all the Motorhome Alternator units in for repair have been overloaded, failed Regulators or melted wires. 50% are normally beyond economic repair. Almost without exception we take them out of vehicles modified outside of the design with extra Batteries or batteries long past it. If you have a B2B installed we suggest you keep the number of an Alternator rebuild company handy, you will need it as these units are designed to run an Alternator to it's maximum to super fast charge the habitation batteries. When has regularly taking something to it's maximum been a good idea? Replacing a Merc Alternator is not a bad job to do, but the parts are expensive. A Fiat/Peugeot Alternator replacement is more time consuming, but the parts cheaper. Both will cost you 6 - 8 times more than a quality Silver/Powerframe battery. We don't understand the logic of risking pushing the charging systems to breaking point for the sake of an £80 battery that is already 4 years old and only cost £20 for each years use!!! Just in case you didn't know, we do not sell Batteries. We repair Motorhome chargers for UK and Continental built vehicles both on the workbench and in the Motorhomes. We see the vehicle they came from : the two extra habitation batteries added without any thought as to how the charging systems will cope : The poor Solar Power installation overcharging the batteries : The destroyed AGM batteries, fitted even though the charger has no AGM profile : The 5 year old batteries that only had a 12 month guarantee when they were new, etc. In this respect we think we are in a unique position, not even the technicians at the Schaudt Factory see the environment that destroyed the charger now on their bench. They can only guess what caused it. After doing this for 3 years we have a better idea than most, probably more real World practical experience than any company in Europe. There are a few others that repair 220v Chargers, there are lots that repair Motorhomes. We don't know of any company in Europe that repairs Chargers, Alternators and Motorhomes. Hence the creation of all the information pages on the web site from 'how to prolong the life of the charging systems' to the best 'Charger friendly Batteries'. We think the key to reliable Motorhome Electrics is making the Charging systems life as easy as possible, some batteries are really efficient and charger friendly, many are not. The biggest offenders in efficiency terms are the Big Traction style batteries. These might be able to run to a lower discharge level, but often lose more power being put into the battery to get 100Ah out. Testing the power left in a battery tells you little about it's real world operation. We know of no tester that will analyse a battery from the point of view of the load it places on the charging systems, which is the key test as this is the expensive bit. An Ammeter and a clock will give you vague guide but you need to know the exact discharge state you are measuring from to be precise. Remember a battery is just a storage box for electricity, it isn't 100% efficient. You put in about 59Ah of power to be able to take out 50Ah on a new battery. The worst can have enormous losses at just 3 years old compared to the best, sometimes requiring 99Ah to be put it to get out 50Ah. At the same time the internals of the Battery have changed and 'pushing' that 99Ah in is really hard work for the charger. It not only has to work harder getting the power in put it has to put in twice as much. Yet to you, that same battery may appear to hold it's charge. It looks normal, because you can't see how hot the Alternator is getting or how close the 220v Charger is to breaking point.. The figures are exaggerated but show the point. Have a look at our pages on battery technology each of our 2 sites has a different way of explaining the same thing. The best batteries really are Head and Shoulders above the rest. Some of the Budget batteries barely last a year before efficiency crashes through the floor. Yet our Best Buy battery is only £87, £8 more than the worst Budget, see : http://www.aandncaravanservices.co.uk/battery-technology.php http://www.atlanticmotorhomeservices.co.uk/battery-technology.php Read the story of the owner who sent his 20A Calira 30/20 charger for repair (his third one bought new from Lunar in the previous 3 years). When we examined it he had fitted two powerful cooling fans because, 'it gets really hot charging the four Habitation batteries'. Not surprising when the unit was only designed to cope with one battery. He was very vocal on the Forums complaining about the reliability of Calira chargers. Please do not fit extra Batteries without understanding how it will affect the Motorhome/Caravan charging systems. Just to re-iterate, we do not sell batteries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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