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2000rpm Max - Another Battery Gremlin

602 Views 15 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  Lindy, 
nbb350
Story Time!

So, everything was going fine today. We went out for coffee, went to the park, stopped at Lowes, stopped at Fleet Farm. The Wife and Dog sat in the Jeep listening to the radio while I shopped inside FF for about 30 minutes. I came out and the Jeep wouldn't start - wouldn't even turn over. WTH? The X-2 battery is only 14 months old! So I opened/closed the driver's door, locked/unlocked with the fob, and waited 10 minutes...tried again. Vrrr...vrrrr...click. Okay...repeat and wait 20 minutes. Vrrr.Vrrr.Vrrr..Vroom! OK, let's go to Batteries Plus for a warranty exchange!

But wait...the engine won't rev over 2000rpm. It shifts from 1st to 2nd around 1500 rpm, then maxs out at 20mph at 2000rpm in 2nd gear. Crap - maybe not the battery. NO idiot lights on the dash at all. Nothing. All the gauges look fine too. Strange...

I limp it another 1/4 mile into the Home Depot parking lot (thinking a flatbed tow can maneuver better in that big lot) and park it (engine still running). But it's only 6 miles to the local Jeep dealer on side roads...I can do that at 20mph max! Nope, they close at 2pm - clock says 1:55pm. Damn. Wait - the other Jeep delaer is 12 miles away and open until 4pm! Okay...limp it there.

Huh...2000rpm max and it won't upshift when I get there, BUT, if I lift off the gas slightly at 2000rpm so the rpms come down, it WILL upshift. So I can get up to highway speeds! (Side note: I swung by home and had the Wife get her Jeep to follow me in case I had to leave my Jeep at the dealer. I still haven't turned off my engine since I got it started at FF parking lot.)

Get to Jeep, pull up to Service and shut off the engine...they say "sounds like a battery issue - we can pull it in and check it Monday." Um...its 2:30 Saturday. So I restart it and drive 2 miles to Batteries Plus to have them check the battery - at normal rpm! Seems like the electrical gremlin has reset itself. Maybe the 45+ minutes it ran from FF to Jeep dealer charged the battery back up?
Well, the battery tests at 60% charge (after being charged for 45+ minutes) - 50% is cutoff for warrranty claim. Alternator "tests good too". "Come back if it gets worse" WTF...30 minutes of radio listening shouldn't kill a 14 month old battery. So I drive home normally with no issues. I guess I'll just have to wait for the battery to die another 15% in order to get a warranty exchange. That'll be a fun surprise when it happens...
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nbb350
As for the Wife touching the key, I doubt it. I'm the one who was driving and turned the engine off (so from Run to Acc) so she could listen to the radio (and play with her phone).
Basic 6 speaker system in my Jeep, so no big amp or subwoofer. Nor was it cranked up - just background music.
Battery is charging up with a Schumacher AGM charger today...6+ hours now and the little Charging light is still lit.
We had a few days here last week where the temp never got above 0F, but the Jeep sits in an attached garage that rarely gets below freezing. And yesterday when this happened the temps were in the high 20s - a nice winter day!
Oh, and the guy at Batteries Plus didn't really want to do much of anything...just clock watching and waiting for beer-thirty.

Maybe it was just a one time glitch, maybe not. I'm sure I'll find out the hard way when I least expect it!
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nbb350
Well, almost 3 days on the charger and the little light is still ON. I checked the maintainer specs and it's only 800 mAH, so not too surprised it's still running.

This is the same maintainer I use on the bench to maintain a general purpose tractor battery (used for 12v trouble shooting of other stuff) and the factory Jeep battery (Batteries Plus didn't want it and they didn't charge me a core charge and it was still working...so I kept it!). The little light WILL turn off after the battery is charged up and back ON every so often, so I'm confident that the maintainer is working as it should. The box said it was rated for AGM batteries, but my bigger, older 1-50 amp charger/starter says no such thing, so I'm hesitant to leave that connected to the AGM battery for too long.
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nbb350
Since I work from home and it's Winter outside, I don't have to leave the house too often this time of year. Today was one of the rare days I had an appointment, so I finally took the little charger off the battery - after almost Five Days of charging. Nope, the little light on the charger never did turn off - the battery never did attain a "full charge". BUT, the engine sure did start in a "positive" manner - I can't remember the last time the starter spun that quickly! Not only that, but it sounded good after all 5 of my errand stops - and it's a balmy 25F here today. AND my Auto-Stop worked! It hasn't worked in at least 6+ months - not that I've missed it. Since it hadn't been working, I'd gotten out of the habit of hitting the Cancel Auto-Stop button on the dash.

This may not be the end of the story - the battery could still spontaneously die on me - but it does tell me that putting a charger on the battery every so often may not be a bad idea. I use that charger on my truck quite often when it sits in the shop unused for 1-2 months. maybe I should start putting it on the Jeep too when I know it's going to be sitting for a while...
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