by Zsnoop » Wed Mar 08, 2023 10:16 pm
I got it solved!! yeee!
It was all about the both batteries in a bad condition! Here some tips on what I did to figure out:
- Both batteries (front and back did show up relatively good voltage (12.5 or more), always thinking batteries should not the problem.
- The front battery acts as starting battery (with only the front battery connected the engine starts ok. However, when turning engine off the power at radio and board computers are lost completely, so full reset in every engine off)
- I did go for a new front battery as I though that was in bad condition (but even after replacing it and powering on engine the dash was again immediately showing errors even after deleting ERR with Forscan, errors again and again)
- Seeing that the back-battery provides permanent power to the board computers as well as the radio, the door locks, etc... I started doubting about the back battery being the cause, assuming that the the back-battery providing power to the board computer was not powerful enough (however confused as it was showing 12v and even 13v. I guess that at the event of igniting the engine the battery voltage dropped enough to make all board computers registering power outage and reporting that as errors, causing red lights and avoiding to start again.
- I find it strange how the two batteries do serve different services of the car/camper (I have original cabling/charing system...), and think that
- When connecting the ForScan batteries always looked good in metrics/measurements.
- Note: Here at my home location it's winter with night temperature around 0-celsius. this can affect batteries.
Based on that I though it could be the battery (back), I decided to go to a local shop specialised in car parts and batteries, they kindly used their battery tester (a professional one) and saw that the capacity of the back-battery (the big one) was around 50%! Wow! This could be a potential reason.... So with no doubt I bought them a new one. I already hd replaced the front one a day before. Now I had 2 brand new batteries... And guess what... finally solved!! no more problems at all.
Note: I asked the shop owner to measure the front battery I replaced a day before, and that old one was also only on 52% capacity.
All in all I believe that when the batteries loose capacity (clearly dead batteries in my case) voltage drops below 12v at ignition time (lost of Amps go to the engine to warm up, and eventually the starter....) so that it gets too low for the board computers registering the power loss, wrong measurements on sensors, and so on... Then an general error is registered that prevents to start, engine error, etc...
So next time you have similar problems:
- Check with ForScan of the bottom right corner small voltage indicator, if below 12v (yellow) that could be a good clue batteries aren't good anymore (specially the back one that serves board computers)
- Check or let a professional test your batteries capacity (yes, both as if one is bad, it could have dragged the other one into being bad - are connected in paralel)
Hope that helps!
See ja!
Z.