House batteries go dead while driving

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cougsfan

cougsfan

Member
Joined
Aug 2, 2009
Posts
21
Location
Eastern Washington
I have a 2011 Winnebago View (class B+ Sprinter based).  We have been on a road trip for the last two weeks.  A few days ago the house batteries were dead when we arrived at our campsite (12.0V) Not enough juice to start the generator.  I plugged into AC and it charged them fine to 13+ volts.    The next morning they were fine, and as we drove for the day they went dead again.  Recharged them again.  The next day they stayed charged (?).  Then today they started going dead again.  I figured the batteries, although only 1-1/2 years old, must be bad, so stopped and I replaced them today.  (yes they are hooked up correctly).  After I put the new batteries in they were setting at 12.6 V with the motor not running.    When i started the Motorhome's motor, they immediately went down to 12.3V.  We drove for 50 miles.  The house batteries were at 12.0 V.  When I shut the motor down they climbed slowly back to 12.2 volts on their own.    So it appears that the new and old batteries are probably both good, but the motor home engine is supposed to charge the house batteries while you drive.  It pulls them down instead at times.  This is all recent.    No heavy loads are running  (Refridge is about all) while we are driving.  The chassis battery has maintained a good charge all the while.    Any ideas on what to look for?  We will be on the road three more weeks!
 
If you are like the larger units, there will be a battery mode solenoid which energizes when the engine is running combining the house and chassis battery banks. We've discussed this a zillion of times here - do a search in this board for battery mode solenoid or Trombetta.
 
mine has an intellitec delay control on a contractor relay, to tie together the two battery systems..charging the chassis and house of either the converter or the alternator. 

Just last month, i had the same experience that you described, and discovered that the contractor was bad.  Luckily, I was camping at the Sun n Fun fly-in and convention..... where I was able to find several vendors with sufficiently rated continuous duty contractors for sale....turned out to be an easy fix.
 
Sounds like your car battery is gone and dragging down the others or your alternator is dead
 
John Canfield said:
That's a possibility. If his batteries are the original ones, time to replace just based on age.
Click to expand...
In his original post the OP said that he already replaced his 1-1/2 year old batteries.
 
SkateBoard said:
Sounds like your car battery is gone and dragging down the others or your alternator is dead
Click to expand...
In his original post the OP said: "The chassis battery has maintained a good charge all the while", (which is an indication that his problem is not with either the car battery or the alternator).
 
mel s said:
In his original post the OP said: "The chassis battery has maintained a good charge all the while", (which is an indication that his problem is not with either the car battery or the alternator).
Click to expand...

Ya, cause the other batteries are keeping it charged!!! lol
 
If the chassis battery was dead he wouldn't have been able to start the engine unless he pressed the Boost switch.
 
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