CT5-V New Car, Battery Challenges

[jvp]

Hey gang -

This may end up being a, "take it to the dealer, that's why you have the warranty, you dope!" question, but here goes: new car as of Memorial Day weekend, just turned 800 miles on the odo. Over the past week or so I've noticed two problems when starting the car:

• It fights with me but starts
• When it does start, the camera mirror is dead

This appears to be a low battery sort of problem. Once I get a charge into the car by driving it, I can stop and restart the car, and the mirror is back. But what I'm not certain of is: what's slow-draining the battery? I do have a RADAR detector installed, and I'm using the (supposedly?) switched lighter plug in the center console. When the car is off, the Valentine is dead. So it would in fact appear to be switched.

My living room chair is about 6-10ft from the door into my garage, and the car is right on the other side of that door. Meaning when I'm chilled out in the living room, and the key fob is in my pocket, it could be activating the approach lights, the door locks, et al. I do know that when I open the door into the garage, all of the car's unlock/approach lights are on. So maybe? But would that be enough cycling to drop the charge in the battery enough to cause this?

Briefly, I'm going to test leaving the fob on my second story and just not having it with me unless I absolutely need it. I despise doing that because it's one extra step I have to remember: head upstairs to fetch the key. I'd rather it be in my pocket. But I'll test it anyway and see what happens. Any other suggestions to look into?

 

[rubberduck]

The keyfob will shut down after some time with no movement, so don’t leave it in your pocket. Or get a keyfob Faraday case.
Lanpard Faraday Bag for Key Fob(2... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B4DCLY87?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

 

[poor-sha]

I'd also put a tender on the battery and make sure it is getting fully charged. You might be driving it enough to start and run ok, but it still could be low.

 

[Snowwolfe]

Battery tender will be your new best friend.

 

[rubberduck]

I use marine battery chargers on all my vehicles.
https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...c7c82a6a500dc39b/1582815803659/PS1+insert.pdf

 

[Nadnerb]

Hey gang -

This may end up being a, "take it to the dealer, that's why you have the warranty, you dope!" question, but here goes: new car as of Memorial Day weekend, just turned 800 miles on the odo. Over the past week or so I've noticed two problems when starting the car:

• It fights with me but starts
• When it does start, the camera mirror is dead

This appears to be a low battery sort of problem. Once I get a charge into the car by driving it, I can stop and restart the car, and the mirror is back. But what I'm not certain of is: what's slow-draining the battery? I do have a RADAR detector installed, and I'm using the (supposedly?) switched lighter plug in the center console. When the car is off, the Valentine is dead. So it would in fact appear to be switched.

My living room chair is about 6-10ft from the door into my garage, and the car is right on the other side of that door. Meaning when I'm chilled out in the living room, and the key fob is in my pocket, it could be activating the approach lights, the door locks, et al. I do know that when I open the door into the garage, all of the car's unlock/approach lights are on. So maybe? But would that be enough cycling to drop the charge in the battery enough to cause this?

Briefly, I'm going to test leaving the fob on my second story and just not having it with me unless I absolutely need it. I despise doing that because it's one extra step I have to remember: head upstairs to fetch the key. I'd rather it be in my pocket. But I'll test it anyway and see what happens. Any other suggestions to look into?

My alternator went out within 700-800 miles. I'd always just recommend taking it to the dealership but the issue is they're gonna hit you with ye old "cannot replicate".

 

[jvp]

I understand and appreciate the suggestions regarding the tender. But this is a brand new battery and shouldn't require tending at this point in its life. Not unless there's a slow drain on it, of course.

 

[LF4472]

I understand and appreciate the suggestions regarding the tender. But this is a brand new battery and shouldn't require tending at this point in its life. Not unless there's a slow drain on it, of course.

There are systems in these cars that use a small amount of power at all times and appear to be sensitive to power levels. It may only take a couple weeks for weird symptoms to appear, hence the suggestion to use a tender.

 

[rubberduck]

With all the electronics, modern cars have a greater parasitic draw than the cars of yesteryear. And factory batteries aren’t generally of the highest quality and are known to die after as little as two years. My car can sit for 3-5 days at a time (longer when I’m out of town) and I use a charger to prolong the life of my battery. A charger and a tender are two different things. A charger can restore a deep cycled battery whereas a tender cannot.

 

[668LT4]

I got my 2022 last November. Bought a tender for it but still have not installed it. My car has sat 14 days on 3 occasions and had no hesitation in firing up. I do keep my garage at 50 degrees through winter, maybe that helps.

 

[Barstoolman1127]

I got my 2022 last November. Bought a tender for it but still have not installed it. My car has sat 14 days on 3 occasions and had no hesitation in firing up. I do keep my garage at 50 degrees through winter, maybe that helps.

I’d stick with the first sentence in your post….."take it to the dealer, that's why you have the warranty, you dope!"

 

[Neveready]

In addition to what others mentioned about the tender, you should not need one and something is wrong. Prob easier to bring it in but if you wanna know for sure here's a suggestion.

It's possible the battery has bad cells or somehow it drained so much that it needs to be fully charged to its capacity. Worst case you have a compounding parasitic drain. Driving it around for an hour or so may not always do it. For example, Voltage readings on my interstate agm 94r h7 with 850cca is 12.8. If your readings are 12.5 or lower it's not fully charged. Voltage readings may vary depending on brand, condition and parasitic loss. *You may want to do this over the course of a few days, as small increments and fluctuations add up.

What I would suggest is to test the voltage at night, make sure to get a reading that's consistent with the amount of draw. (Ie headlights off, maybe just the trunk light on).
Lock the doors.
In the morning, check the voltage and see how much it dropped and there is your parasitic loss. At that point, proceed to the dealer.

If you don't have the need for a maintenance trickle charger, I'd suggest going with a large capacity battery charger. Once fully charged, you can test voltage on the battery and get a more accurate baseline for future reference.

 

[jwolf99]

There have also been a couple of instances of cables not been properly attached to the battery. Check that as well.

 

[jbawden]

Understand that the car has been started and stopped many times in that 800 miles. Around the plant, on and off the truck, dealer movements, and whatever short trips you have done. It takes a lot of steady state driving to get a battery back to full charge after that. If your car is a weekend warrior, then I strongly recommend a maintainer. I know some folks have a battery filled with unicorn juice and they never fail, but a maintainer will prolong the life and keep weird conditions like you describe from being a thing.

NOCO makes a permanent vehicle mounted maintainer that I hard wired to the lugs under the hood. I run a cord to it and close the hood to the safety latch status, then cover it.

NOCO - 2A Direct-Mount Battery Charger and Maintainer - GENIUS2D

The GENIUS2D is a 2-amp direct-mount battery charger and battery maintainer for all types of 12-volt lead-acid batteries.

no.co

 

[Exia]

First step is I'd disconnect the radar detector when parking and see if you have the issue the next day to be absolutely sure it isn't drawing current when the car is off.

If the issue persists I'd assume the battery or alternator is bad unless you are doing a lot of short drives which means you aren't recharging the battery fully between uses.

As others said these cars do use a lot of tech in the background when turned off, it shouldn't be running down your battery overnight but if its going to sit for multiple days I would get in the habit of connecting a trickle charger for those times.

 

[Head Hunter]

We had an issue with my wife's car where the key holder inside the house was too close to her car in the garage, and the car would constantly think someone was approaching the vehicle and after about a month, she had a dead battery despite driving it daily. Not sure if that could be happening to you, but just a thought.

 

[jvp]

Update: prior to this afternoon at lunch, the last time I drove the car was Sunday evening. Since Sunday, I've left the key on my nightstand (which I HATE DOING!). Today, the car barked right to life, no problems at all, and the camera mirror was working perfectly. So it might have been the key moving around near the car that whole time, but I'm going to be keeping an eye on it.

 

[shbox]

We had an issue with my wife's car where the key holder inside the house was too close to her car in the garage, and the car would constantly think someone was approaching the vehicle and after about a month, she had a dead battery despite driving it daily. Not sure if that could be happening to you, but just a thought.

There might have been just enough distance for the car to see it some times and not at other times. I left my key in the front cup holder the other day when I was doing stuff in the garage. When I came back to start the car, it said the key recognition had gone to sleep and to move the key a little bit to wake it up. Then, I was able to start the car normally.

 

[MatthewAMEL]

Loved the idea of the NOCO installed. Hated the idea of it under the hood exposed to the heat. So I put mine in the battery compartment. Used Gorilla tape for mounting the bracket. Thanks for the tip, @jbawden