Battery died on new Road Warrior

Brought the new Road Warrior home and parked it for 2 days and the Battery went dead.I had to jump start the battery to get the generator going.It ran for an hour or so shut it off and the next morning it was dead again. I've had it plugged in now for two days.

So I guess my question is.Should I turn off the breakers on the generator when the RV is not in use?Will this help?I'm wondering if we were just playing too much.(radio on, raising and lowering the beds)We also had the fridge on (gas mode) but not sure how much power it takes.Bad battery?I guess I just don't want to find a dead short the hard way.Any suggestions would be great.

Dale and Lori

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dlpmx said:

Brought the new Road Warrior home and parked it for 2 days and the Battery went dead.I had to jump start the battery to get the generator going.It ran for an hour or so shut it off and the next morning it was dead again. I've had it plugged in now for two days.

So I guess my question is.Should I turn off the breakers on the generator when the RV is not in use?Will this help?I'm wondering if we were just playing too much.(radio on, raising and lowering the beds)We also had the fridge on (gas mode) but not sure how much power it takes.Bad battery?I guess I just don't want to find a dead short the hard way.Any suggestions would be great.

Dale and Lori

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Dale:
I would suggest taking some voltage readings on your battery first thing. 1 reading without the rig plugged in, then 1 reading with it plugged in and the convertor charging the battery. The 2nd reading should be about 14 volts - definitely not close to the non-charging reading. This tells you if the convertor/charger is working.
If the battery won't take a good charge after about 6 hours on the convertor, most likely you have a bad (sulphated) battery.

Dale, one point should be made here. The batterys are installed by the dealer, not Heartland. Who knows how long the battery sat on a shelf before it was installed. Was it ever charged after it was installed. Check and see if the month and year of the installation is punched out on the battery. That will tell you how old the battery is. If the battery wont hold a charge you should contact your dealer and make them replace it. My 2cts..........Bob

There are well made batterys and junk batterys, make sure the dealer has installed a good one. You can usually tell by the weight, a good one will weight significantly more than a cheap one. I don't know what size battery your unit takes, I'll assume its a group 27. My Deka Marine Master groupe 27 weighs 58 lbs. Even if you have to pay a little extra for a good battery it will be worth it.

My battery was replaced during my PDI last week. I saw water on the top of the battery and told the tech "I think it is boiling over"

He didn't hesitate, they just put a new one in.

I went through 3 brand new batteries before I got a good one. The others all had dead cells.

We cannot run the refer for week without both group 27 batteries going dead. We had to leave it on a storage lot while we flew to Pennsylvania for a week, and we did not want to unload everything into my parents home. I figured that if we only ran the refer on propane and nothing else, during a cool part of March, it would be okay, but I was wrong. We came back to a bunch of spoiled food.

The battery the dealer installed was an Interstate. I plugged it in for 2 days and shut off the fridge and now it is staying charged.I think it was just us playing and having the fridge on.Also my have not been fully charged from the dealer.

Dale

Dale, thats great. My only rebutal is that I guess you wont be doing much dry camping. There was thing you didnt say though. Was the fridge on gas when the battery went dead? Where you you using lots of lights. Running the slides in and out. Does it have the fantastic fans and were they on. Without the coach plugged in, the fans will run about 6-7 days on the battery in our coach. But nothing else is on. I would run a simple test. Make sure the battery is completely charged. Check the amp rating on the battery. 500 amp-600 amp etc. Turn on 1 light and test the draw
on the battery. 1 amp etc. Leave the light on and see how long it takes to drain the battery. A 1 amp drain on a battery with 500 amp rating should take 500 hours to drain the battery. Remember there are some parasitic drains in your coach all the time. Bob

I had the same problem with my new Cyclone. Turns out that the dealer installed an Interstate battery, but the year punched out was 2003!