Low Battery Message

[Miyo360]

Originally Posted by Zebster

I've honestly got no idea why you imagined it would be helpful to attach a stock photo of a car battery that has no relation to your own, but I can't be bothered to now unravel the advice I gave after looking at it!

Apologies. I was at work, miles from the car, and just needed to confirm what you meant by "readily-accessible positive connection". I thought the fundamentals of car batteries were the same (big block with two terminals) so didn't specifically need to go get a snap of my actual battery in the car. Apologies if it was misleading.

Thanks for the tip about checking the battery type (EFB or AGM) - seems like I will need to pop the hood and look after all.

With the CTEK, the manual suggests I first need to choose a program (small battery OR normal), then choose an option AGM OR RECOND (or maybe neither).



The manual doesn't mention disconnecting any cables if doing this to a battery mounted in a car, regardless of program/option combination, so I think I'm going to follow that advice - red clamp to +ve, black clamp to chassis.

[Zebster]

Originally Posted by Miyo360

Apologies. I was at work, miles from the car, and just needed to confirm what you meant by "readily-accessible positive connection". I thought the fundamentals of car batteries were the same (big block with two terminals) so didn't specifically need to go get a snap of my actual battery in the car. Apologies if it was misleading.

Thanks for the tip about checking the battery type (EFB or AGM) - seems like I will need to pop the hood and look after all...

On my model the battery positive terminal is 'readily accessible' because Volvo thoughtfully provided a removable plastic panel in the bulkhead for the purpose of attaching a charger to the positive connector. In contrast, accessing the battery negative terminal is rather more fiddly (especially on my R-Design model, where a strut brace gets in the way).

My car's battery is an EFB type. However my Owner's Manual does explain that V60 models of this vintage with auto transmission get an AGM type.

For info, I attach the charger negative lead to a bolt head on the EGR valve/cooler assembly when charging.

[Tannaton]

Forward to 1:40....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6OgF5tei0c

[MadAlicesDad]

I've had two 64 plate V60s and both had repeated low battery messages / stop start unavailable that were not fixed by a new battery. Even if I charge the main and aux batteries with a smart charger, stop/start only lasts for a few hours and never the next day. I just accept it.

However, in early summer (the really hot bit) I had to work away from home at a time when restaurants etc were not open much. As a result much of what I ate was bought from supermarkets during the day and to keep it cool, I bought an electric coolbox. Whenever i was out and about, I kept it plugged in the permanent live socket in the boot even though I was worried about the low battery warning.

Bizarrely, whenever the coolbox (54W) had been used, the stop start came back. Same happens if I use a 120W 12V kettle; stop start works afterwards.

It's a repeatable effect, not a one off. Can anyone explain it?

[RS3100]

It's probably "kick-starting" the battery monitoring system into resynchronising with the battery due to the relatively high load placed on the system.

Without intervention, you have to wait for the system to recharge the batteries at a lower rate, as there will be less load resulting in lower alternator output, particularly with stop/start systems where the output without heavy battery loads is minimal or cut off at certain points in the driving cycle.

[rxtian]

Maybe the car is seeing the high load, and actually charging the battery hard itself, which re-enables the stop start. Thats until the load is gone and it goes back into fuel-saving low charging.

Edit: RS3100 got there first

[Miyo360]

Just an update on my experience. I checked my battery and noticed it had AGM on the label, so I hooked up the CTEK, set it to AGM and RECON and left it overnight on Saturday.

On the Sunday morning the 7th LED was lit, which means the main steps had completed. The 8th (and final LED) is simply a 95%-100% trickle top up. I disconnected the CTEK around 9am. I then reset the BMS sensor using the hack shown in the youtube video and noticed the Battery icon flash 3 times.

Around 2pm that day, I drove around 10 miles, stopped, then an hour later got back in the car, started up, thought to check the battery stats using a WIFI ODB II thing. The battery reset was confirmed, as shown by the 'days since BMS reset' was 0. Battery charge state was 84% - had the battery lost ~10% in 6 hours? Difficult to say as I didn't take a reading of the battery charge state immediately after disconnecting the CTEK, but this was lower than expected.

The car wasn't driven again until Wednesday, for a short 1mile journey, stopped, then 1mile back home. Then today, Saturday again, 1 week since the CTEK was used, I got into the drivers seat to see "Low Battery" on the dash :-(

Battery charge state was 51%. So I guess I do have a duff battery after all?

The 'Car Scanner' app I'm using has other stats related to the 2nd battery, but I'm not sure what I'm looking at and what numbers are in a 'normal' range.

Thoughts and advice much appreciated.

[RS3100]

If you have start/stop on the car, the system will attempt to maintain the battery state of charge at around 80% to allow headroom for regenerative charging during braking and on over-run.

I have noticed that when I boost charge my car, which I do every 2 weeks or so if not in use, it will very quickly stabilise at around 80% SOC after the charger has been disconnected, even if not driven in the interim.

Two 1 mile journeys are likely to have taken more from the battery than the car would have put in.

So, if you have S/S (which I assume you do as you have an AGM battery) it appears to me that everything is normal.

[Clan]

Originally Posted by Miyo360

Just an update on my experience. I checked my battery and noticed it had AGM on the label, so I hooked up the CTEK, set it to AGM and RECON and left it overnight on Saturday.

On the Sunday morning the 7th LED was lit, which means the main steps had completed. The 8th (and final LED) is simply a 95%-100% trickle top up. I disconnected the CTEK around 9am. I then reset the BMS sensor using the hack shown in the youtube video and noticed the Battery icon flash 3 times.

Around 2pm that day, I drove around 10 miles, stopped, then an hour later got back in the car, started up, thought to check the battery stats using a WIFI ODB II thing. The battery reset was confirmed, as shown by the 'days since BMS reset' was 0. Battery charge state was 84% - had the battery lost ~10% in 6 hours? Difficult to say as I didn't take a reading of the battery charge state immediately after disconnecting the CTEK, but this was lower than expected.

The car wasn't driven again until Wednesday, for a short 1mile journey, stopped, then 1mile back home. Then today, Saturday again, 1 week since the CTEK was used, I got into the drivers seat to see "Low Battery" on the dash :-(

Battery charge state was 51%. So I guess I do have a duff battery after all?

The 'Car Scanner' app I'm using has other stats related to the 2nd battery, but I'm not sure what I'm looking at and what numbers are in a 'normal' range.

Thoughts and advice much appreciated.

The battery is sulphated ...
volvo say that you need to charge it for at LEAST 48 hours which will help greatly ... in my experience you need to use a basic 20A regulated power supply set to about 14.5 v and leave it 48 hours , you will see the charging current come down in the usual way at a reasonable rate , the last stage takes the 48 hours to go the last 10% or so ... to see the charging current below 100ma i tend to leave it longer until it is as low as it will go preferably 0 ma. all these fancy auto chargers are useless for doing this above procedure ...

[BobS]

Hi All,


+1 for Clan's advice.

XC60 2015.

I have had the low battery message since June. Car is lucky to get a 20 mile run a week. Charging the battery (so called intelligent charger!) until it was charged and the charger automatically turned off. Made no difference.

Spotted Clans advice on another post about charging for 48hrs and thought its worth a try.

Over 2 days I had to reset the charger several times when it automatically stopped and now magically the low battery message has gone, stop start now works (knew there would be a down side) and the electric boot (Tailgate?) now works every time.

After 3 weeks without any charging it still all works ok.

Now time for another 48hr charge.

Bob.

PS. Connected charger direct to battery and also tried the power socket in the boot made no difference. So extension cable from garage to inside boot and sat charger on top of boot cover so it could be seen through rear window. car could still be locked and secure while charging.