V70: Electrical Low Battery Charge

[morsing]

Hi,

My 2014 V70 D4 with Stop/Start keeps displaying "Low Battery Charge". Couple of questions:

- Does this car have two batteries? I'm struggling to get this confirmed.

- If so, which battery would this message refer to?

- VIDA doesn't show any battery related messages oddly, so why the dash board message?

Thanks

[piotrek]

- Does this car have two batteries? I'm struggling to get this confirmed.
Yes.

- If so, which battery would this message refer to?
The main 12V battery.

- VIDA doesn't show any battery related messages oddly, so why the dash board message?

"Low battery" is not an error, it indicates that the state of charge of your main 12V battery is under cca. 60% SOC. The SOC drops a bit every night due to quiescent current (standby drain) and goes up again while car is driven and battery charged by the alternator. The alternator will charge the battery to 85% SOC.

You can check in VIDA the SOC, the quiescent drain level and the battery charge current.

[morsing]

Thanks, so the main battery is that the one that is visible under the cover by the main fuse box?

Does the car use this for manual starting and general use?

Henrik

[Potski]

Yes.

Just take the car for a long drive 1-2 hours and hopefully the message will disappear & the stop start function will return. Had to do that with mine but the message didn't disappear at the end of a couple of hours driving but the following day stop start worked perfectly.

By the way, my Volvo specialist garage say the have never has to replace the second battery.

Worry not.

[V70greg]

I had a similar issue with my car which had been stood for many months before I brought it. Mine needed several long journeys for the stop/start to function again properly.

An alternative could be to charge the battery, you can do this with the battery still connected (but don't start the engine with the charger connected). Apparently the negative should go to a good earth and not the -ve battery terminal (not sure why) I didn't know this and used the -ve battery terminal without a problem.

[morsing]

Originally Posted by V70greg

I had a similar issue with my car which had been stood for many months before I brought it. Mine needed several long journeys for the stop/start to function again properly.

[...]
Apparently the negative should go to a good earth and not the -ve battery terminal (not sure why) I didn't know this and used the -ve battery terminal without a problem.

Hi,

That's because charging a battery releases hydrogen gas and dis-connecting a charge lead will almost always give a spark which can ignite the gas. For the same reason you always need to attach the +ve lead first.
I think it has to be a perfect storm for anything bad to happen, though, and hydrogen also implodes, rather than explode, so probably more un-pleasant than dangerous.

The thing is this car was driving 2h a day and still showed this message. I don't think the start/stop function ever stopped working.

[Zebster]

Originally Posted by morsing

Hi,

That's because charging a battery releases hydrogen gas and dis-connecting a charge lead will almost always give a spark which can ignite the gas. For the same reason you always need to attach the +ve lead first.
I think it has to be a perfect storm for anything bad to happen, though, and hydrogen also implodes, rather than explode, so probably more un-pleasant than dangerous.

The thing is this car was driving 2h a day and still showed this message. I don't think the start/stop function ever stopped working.

Actually the reason why the charger negative has to go to the body (or engine) is so that the charging current passes through the battery negative lead where there is a charge sensor that updates the vehicle charging system on the battery charge status.

Hydrogen doesn't implode!

[morsing]

Originally Posted by Zebster

Actually the reason why the charger negative has to go to the body (or engine) is so that the charging current passes through the battery negative lead where there is a charge sensor that updates the vehicle charging system on the battery charge status.

That reminds me of a survey some years ago where people was asked what the greatest invention was and the winner was the iPhone!

Originally Posted by Zebster

Hydrogen doesn't implode!

2H2 (g) + O2 (g) → 2H2O (g) + energy

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_fuel

Or do you also believe water is less dense than hydrogen?

[AlexV70Drive1]

Originally Posted by morsing

Hi,

My 2014 V70 D4 with Stop/Start keeps displaying "Low Battery Charge". Couple of questions:

- Does this car have two batteries? I'm struggling to get this confirmed.

- If so, which battery would this message refer to?

- VIDA doesn't show any battery related messages oddly, so why the dash board message?

Thanks

I have this issue and using a smart battery charger hasn’t fixed it, you’ll need a new main battery and they are not very cheap. Even with my trade card im looking at about £250 to get my Volvo to stop giving me the low battery message and allow the radio to stay on longer than 2mins once the engine is off, the start stop is always unavailable but I honestly like that it doesn’t work, I just want the radio to work without running the engine and have no message come up. I will live with it until it can’t start the car anymore then replace it.

[V70greg]

Originally Posted by morsing

That reminds me of a survey some years ago where people was asked what the greatest invention was and the winner was the iPhone!



2H2 (g) + O2 (g) → 2H2O (g) + energy

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_fuel

Or do you also believe water is less dense than hydrogen?

Not sure on the intricacies between imploding and exploding.

If I remember my science correctly that equation shows mixing Hydroden with Oxygen creates water and energy; energy will usually be given off as a light, sound, noise or most often heat (especially as part of a chemical reaction). This I understand can be observed as an explosion.

I am genuinely interested in understanding if this causes an implosion what an implosion is and what is the difference from an explosion (I'm just a geek at heart)