I will not be buying my next car from Carvana! I may not even keep this 2018 F-Type Convertible either!

Drove home from Carvana (about 19 miles), turned the engine off, and a red warning light: Battery Low; Start Car. Drove back to Carvana and was told that once I took delivery of the vehicle I have to use the warranty. (100 days or 4,100 miles). Time to contact Carvana Corporate and raise some he double hockey sticks; and take it to the nearest warranty shop - around 10 minutes from the house.

No mechanics at the Carvana Delivery Point..

I will update as necessary; the problem is I like the car...a lot!

 

The battery is very minor….the car has likely not been used enough to keep it charged, and these cars like and need full battery voltage all the time.If a new battery is installed you must charge it FULLY at installation. New batteries are virtually never fully charged on purchase. Don’t let this very minor inconvenience ruin your experience with the F-Type.

I assume that you got a service history with the car?

 

Gregory - I got a Carfax Report but it doesn’t list what “service” it received. I suspect that it needs either a trickle charger or a long (2-3 hours) road trip to charge it up.

It’s a good looking car! Although I need to be a contortionist to enter or exit the car once inside there is a lot of room for my 6’2”, 270# body!

 

A beautiful car indeed! When the car has a message stating that the battery is low, it is to be believed. But the reasons for a low charge in the battery are varied. One of the most common is quite simple: using the car infrequently, using it for very short trips, and worse, combining these two. The battery will never reach full charge and the result will be terrifying symptoms: multiple warning lights (for any system) , problems with lock and unlocking, the convertible roof not functioning properly….in 99.99% of cases the issue is in the battery or its connections, NOT in the car itself.

Look at the centre console area of your car. Towards the top you will see the red triangle of the 4-way flasher unit. This red triangle also serves to tell you that the electronics of the car have not gone to sleep and that the modules are therefore consuming battery energy. Lock your car. Look at that triangle. It will glow red for about 10-15 minutes and then will go out. This is NORMAL. If after 20 minutes or so the triangle is still lit, you have a battery drain. NOT NORMAL. One quite common cause of this is that a tech has plugged in an OBDII reader and has failed to shut it down before unplugging it. Easily cured by simply disconnecting the battery leads for 30 seconds; this resets all systems.

So, how to avoid a low battery? Start with a new, correct battery which is fully charged, repeat, fully charged. Buy a CTEK battery maintainer, not a “trickle charger”. Connect the CTEK unit permanently (instructions in several threads here). When the car is not in use, connect the CTEK unit to the wall outlet. It will check the battery, desulphate the battery and safely and gently recharge it and KEEP it charged. The CTEK unit can be left operating for months and months, in fact, permanently, without any danger of overcharging the battery.

The result? 100% of the time you have a fully charged battery and no issues with the 4,300,027 electronic modules in this car.

 

CTEK is the official way to go, as stated above. Alternatively, you can get a charger from Harbor Freight for $40 and it includes the pigtail you can hardwire to the car (be sure set it for a 12V AGM battery). There are threads here with clear instructions of how to install the pigtail.

Harbor Freight Battery Charger

 

I agree with Gregory that the "low battery" is minor. If you don't already own one, pick up a CTEK and give it a good overnight run. Also, keep in mind that if your car still has the original battery, life is easier if you don't wait for it to fail before replacing. Presumably you're somewhere around the 6 year mark. My F-Type went longer, but the F-Pace didn't.

As you can see through the forum, a worn or poorly charged battery can cause all kinds of error codes/false flags.

Meanwhile, stay on top of getting your title from Carvana. They've had multiple complaints & lawsuits, and their stock dropped over 90% over the last year. At the rate they're burning through cash, you don't want to be chasing a title if things go (further) south.

Enjoy your new toy!

 

There is no svelte way to enter or exit the vehicle. I go in butt first and then swing my legs in. Exit is reverse that operation. And then I look back at the car as I walk away and I smile.

 

Yep, low battery is most likely a non-issue. Cars at dealerships get taken for numerous short test drives, moved around the lot, etc. All of that is bad for a car battery and Jaguar's are very sensitive to less than full-voltage charges. Like others have said, get a CTEK battery tender and use it whenever the car is not going to be used for more than 24 hours and you'll never have battery gremlins.

Now if even after a full charge the battery low light remains you may need a new battery. Not surprising on a 5-year old car, and especially one that probably wasn't used as a daily driver.

 

I'd guess they connected an OBD reader to check for codes and triggered the famous "won't go to sleep" situation. As sov211 says, disconnect the battery for half a minute to clear that, then fully charge the battery. CTEK is the most frequently recommended here. I have two: one for lithium (motorcycle) and one for lead/acid (car). The latter has an AGM setting.

After that, drive and enjoy.

 

Bought my F Type from Carvana as well. It had SO many problems (mechanical, electrical and aesthetic) and I spent a lot of time and effort working with their warranty but was able to get about $10K worth of things fixed. I should have returned the car but I fell in love with it when I first got it.
When it was delivered to me I too had a ton of errors on the dash but driving the car a bit fixed them. I came to the conclusion (like others here mentioned) that the car was sitting for a while somewhere in a lot and the battery drained.

 

I drove around 80 miles total today and when I parked it the Low Battery light didn’t materialize. I’ll gas it up tomorrow and put some highway miles on it and see what happens.

 

Congrats on the new F-Type. +1 on the CTEK recommendation. As far as getting out of the car, I have preset one of my three seat memory slots with an "egress position" that puts the seat all the way back and all the way down. Makes it a lot easier to get in and out...

 

Welcome to the forum and congrats on a beautiful Jaguar. I'm 99% sure that the advice given above by other members who have experienced the same issue is correct, and count me among those others who recommend a CTEK unit. I'll bet putting a few miles on your car helped a lot, and having it on a CTEK unit when it will sit more than a few days will keep the battery in top shape. Unless the battery is near the end of its expected service life of course and at 5 years, if it wasn't maintained properly it may be.

 

+1 on TexasJag. I should probably program one of the other two open seat buttons for egress, but will get to that! For now I just push the control button for the front to back seat position all the way back before trying to exit. I have that distance setting programmed in to button 1, so when I get back in, press 1 and seat moves forward to desired driving position. I also have adopted the 'butt facing the seat, sit down, rotate & swing legs in" entry for the rest of my cars. Not so much needed in the Golf, but a necessity in the E type.

 

I slide across the hood and jump in the open window just like Starsky and Hutch!

 

Took the advice of others on here and purchased the Viking charger yesterday and decided to hardwire it due to Maine winters. Initially only showed 1 horizontal bar and after allowing the battery to charge overnight it now has 5 horizontal bars but will not turn green and transition to the maintenance phase. Is this a sign that I may need a new battery? Vehicle is a 2021 R with 1800 miles on the odometer when I bought it in Florida last week and I added 1500 additional miles on the drive home. Car was part of a collection and I have a feeling it sat in a garage for days on end. Hopefully my battery will be just fine.

 

WTF? When were you going to tell me???

Welcome back ‘Portlander’.
Jay

 

Sorry Jay, I thought you were done with Jaguars after I saw some recent photos of your hood hanging from the side of your house. Figured you were selling off parts to help make the mortgage payment.

 

 

I'm not familiar with the Viking charger, but the CTEK often takes over 24 hours to fully charge a depleted battery, so "overnight" may not be enough. Does the Viking have a "recondition" option? If it does, that might help bring the batery back to full life.