13 pin trailer extension cable for 2014 XC60 to caravan

[Brighousewood]

Originally Posted by moosehead74

If the socket has been wired correctly vehicle should charge your van battery when connected with the engine running and should be charged when you get back to storage compound. You can check this by putting a voltmeter across the van battery when your trailer electrics are connected and the engine is running. The charging voltage will probably be lower than what you would normally measure across the battery of the vehicle due to pd drop across cables.

Sometimes my mover struggles if I hook up to van at storage area and battery hasn't been charged for a while. By the time we get to site its fully charged.

Thanks for that, I do have a small solar panel which keep my van battery up to 12.5 volts when in store. With my old outfit I never noticed the battery being charged.

[Brighousewood]

Originally Posted by SwissXC90

One other aspect to consider is using a vehicle battery charge monitor.

I use the CTEK Battery Sense, which is a small device that connects directly to the car battery, and collates battery charge state every 5 minutes

You can then approach the car and once within bluetooth range, view the current and historical charge state in the CTEK app on your phone.

Very useful to monitor the charge state and know when to disconnect the caravan or to connect a charger.

That's a new one for me, never heard of it. I must do a bit of research on CTEK. Thank you.

https://www.ctek.com/uk/products/car/ctx-battery-sense

https://www.halfords.com/motoring/ba...se-430846.html

[Brighousewood]

Originally Posted by Whyman

As others have said be careful.

Not sure whether the cars system which will switch off things such as the radio after a few minutes sitting in the car would automatically disconnect the trailer socket if the battery gets too low? Running the cars battery low will shorten it’s life.

The car will recharge the caravan battery when you are on the move but only once the cars battery is charged. If you have only a short trip back to the storage then the caravan battery may not be fully charged.

I assume you have a solar panel on the caravan?

I have just had a new "Stop/start" battery fitted by my garage, cost me £150. My car is not stop/start so I presume it has more capacity than a normal one. I have a 5 amp solar for use in store.

It is anoying when the car switches off the radio!

Thanks for that.