How about the cars charging system. Could have been running on battery only for a lot longer than the 4 hours. And yes batteries do go bad, you can get it tested at most auto parts stores.

 

Thanks for the feedback now I'm staritng to question the battery. Even after a full charge a day later voltage is only around 12.1.

 

It is worth noting that when you put the car away the battery might not be full.

Batteries are also not X number of year guarantees.

Environment, use, and quality variance can all be contributors.

I'd follow Murray's lead to begin with.

Even a newly purchased battery can be a problem. (The same applies to tires and wheels).

 

Although a bit of a hassle , I'd eliminate the battery by replacing it. Nothing works well on our cars unless our batteries are 100% healthy. It's the best place to start.

 

Yep, she's a goner

 

So as you can see, the fact that the battery is relatively new (or relatively newly installed) means very little. You need a new, fully charged battery - and a new battery is very rarely fully charged.
I'll say it again: for ANY electronic issue in these cars suspect the battery FIRST, and eliminate it as a suspect before moving to something more complicated (and far less likely).

 

Good thing battery comes with a 3 year free replacement!

 

Check the date on the new battery. Try not to get anything older than 30 days. I buy all my batteries at Walmart and they have a sticker on top with the date manufactured. I also bring a voltmeter and try to pull the battery with the highest reading of 12.66 or above.

 

Does anyone have a solar powered maintainer they use? I know this won’t work in your garage without significant wiring extensions but I still need a battery maintainer and would prefer it to work 24/7 like on my RV. The solar panels on the RV are 5ft but they are making phone solar chargers so surely someone has come up with an automotive solar battery maintainer that attaches inconspicuous to the top angle of a back bumper?

Anyone?

 

Many solar powered automotive battery maintainers are listed on Amazon, but Buyer Beware! Make sure that the device is a "smart" charger that automatically cycles off when fully charged and turns back on when needed. Otherwise, it can overcharge your battery, boil out the electrolyte and kill your battery. Read the customer reviews and know that some of them are fake. I usually read the 1-star reviews first, which often saves me time by convincing me to buy something else.

As an alternative to a battery maintainer, consider replacing your original lead-acid "wet cell/ flooded" type of battery with a newer technology AGM battery. When parked, an Absorbed Glass Mat battery discharges at a much slower rate than a flooded battery, which means that it's less likely to need a charge. Although AGM is more expensive, it's worth it as many X150 Forum members who have made the switch with no problems will tell you.

Your car, your money, your choice. But if it was me, I'd take the money that I'd spend on a solar powered battery maintainer and put it towards a new AGM battery. I recently replaced the 7-year old OEM AGM battery in my 2013 XJ with a new Bosch AGM battery from Pep Boys for $180 installed and am very pleased with it.

 

I never thought I would have to bring this up and perhaps all is well but here is my problem now.

AGM 900 CCA battery installed less than 2 years ago (manufacture
date exactly 2 years ago) when the original battery finally kicked the bucket, faithfully kept on a CTEK MUS4.3 and then a 5.0 as of January. Car was away for 2 months and when returned to me had some errors. Connected to the CTEK for a little over 24 hours before CTEK went to step 7 and green, disconnected and Voltage read over 13.5. Attempted to run some diagnostics and was prompted the battery voltage was now 12.3. Reconnected CTEK and it went through the steps and ended right back at step 7. I don’t ever recall the battery draining so rapidly previously and perhaps I’m just sensitive since I’m trying to sort other issues on the car. Anyone have any thoughts? It has over a year left
on free replacement but don’t want to go through the effort and embarrassment if I’m wrong.

 

I'd say you got the battery used to being at or very near full capacity. If the other guy let it get below that, your battery didn't know what to do so it gave up.

 

Put the CTEK back on and use Recondition Mode. Leave it on until the green light illuminates in Step 7. Then hope for the best.

I drove my XJ a few days ago for the first time in almost 3 months. Although I keep it on my CTEK MUS4.3 and it started right up, while I was driving I got a Stop-Start battery fault. That's a separate, small auxiliary battery that apparently wasn't getting charged by the CTEK. When I got home, I checked the aux battery with my voltmeter and it was totally dead. I figured it was a goner, and decided to see if it could be resurrected. Why not give it a try? So I attached my CTEK directly to the positive and negative battery terminals of the auxiliary battery (the battery monitoring module is attached to the main battery, that's why I didn't use a chassis ground), set my CTEK MUS4.3 to the Motorcycle Icon since it's a small battery, and clicked through the settings until the Motorcycle Icon and Recondition Mode were both illuminated. It didn't even register on Step 1, but I left it on and when I checked it after an hour it was on Step 1, so I left it attached. It took two days for the green light in Step 7 to illuminate and all seems OK now. I got lucky. I hope you do, too. Good luck!

 

My previous BMW had an AGM as standard and like the Jag was a battery hog. It never survived longer than 2 years, my experience is the opposite of what is sold on this board that AGM last longer. Once a battery shows as fully charged and loses it quickly it indicates that it is failing, that is why the auto-stores will load test the batteries and not just charge and use a volt meter.

You might be able to recondition through several cycles. Curious if you did need to take it back how your warranty would work, typically they give you prorated amount, they chop off 2 years of value.

 

I have it on AGM recon mode now and will see what happens. I’m not going to try that more than once. It’s from Advance Auto and states 3 year free replacement on the case.

 

I've got nine 12V batteries between my cars, boat, pumps and generators. To help me sort battery issues, I use an relatively inexpensive electronic battery tester. This is not the older style carbon pile load tester that has been around for decades. The electronic version is safe, easy to hook up and easy to interpret. Measures voltage, internal resistance (key to battery health) and the charging system function. Takes a lot of guess work out of sorting a battery.

You may be able to charge up a 12V to what initially looks like good voltage (measured with a simple volt meter) but it won't hold and the voltage drops precipitously very quickly with time or drops way too low on the first draw from the starter. As mentioned before, a healthy battery should start at 12.6 to 12.8. Initially after charging there is a surface charge which may give a reading of even higher (13+) this is OK but you can't use this number to indicate battery health. A voltage reading of 12.1 after charging a battery means it's time to replace the battery no matter the age.

Internal resistance (essentially a measure of sulfated plates) is a key factor when trying to charge a battery and having the battery hold the charge. Reconditioning a battery (if your charger has that option) sometimes works to remove the lead sulfate coating the plates but sometimes the battery is just too far gone. The battery tester will also give you an idea if your charging system is faulty (much less likely). The charging system on my XK is somewhat odd in that is will vary the output voltage depending upon what it detects the battery voltage to be. This initially threw me off but now I realize that there is a variable output from the alternator.
One option:

Regards, Phil

 

Saw this video and found it interesting around the 18 minute mark where her starts with a voltmeter and confirms with an infrared thermometer. Not saying this is worth the effort for you Jahummer, but would be for future. And I would be reticent if I didn't remind others that Jaguar, beginning 2010 says to replace like for like batteries so if you had an AGM, replace with AGM and if you had standard lead acid battery, replace with one. This is related to the charge rate of the alternator Jaguar installed. I'd attach the PDF but the site says the PDF has the wrong file extension. It doesn't.
Still I've read where many just move to AGM without incident. Jahummer knows his stuff so this is by no means a lecture. Information only...

 

This may end being much ado about nothing, like I mentioned I may just be sensitive due to the fault messages I am seeing after the car was getting the corner balance done for 2 months. According to SDD the battery did go flat at some point while they had it. I understand about surface charge but if my memory serves me right, I would have sworn the voltage used to be above 13 volts most of the time. Anyhow we'll see after the recon is done. I've never had battery or electronic issues before except for ones related to aging batteries. While all of my other cars were fitted with AGM batteries from the factory, the X150 was not. I chose to make the switch to get better performance, life and stability and the consensus on the forums was that the charging profile didn't really matter if a CTEK was used frequently.

 

That recon mode on Ctek does f-all. I found out after I got a dedicated desulphator for $15. But the absolute truth is you will never desulphate a battery past certain point. If you could you would make a fortune turning dead batteries into new. And just like used tire shops you would see used battery shops.

The Pep Boys warranty is 4 years on AGM, used to be 7 years. ......The only unspoken flaw in AGM is that they must be stored charged. So I would buy from Costco, they will still be in business 3 years from now and you will get one fresh due to volume

 

All I'm saying is that is the CTEK Recondition Mode is worth a try. What do you have to lose?