Normal battery on a start/stop vehicle?

[BrokenBiker]

Freelander is sluggish to start, noticed over the last few days. It will start and is fine once running, will then restart all day just fine.

It has a varta f21 on it now, a dynamic stop start battery, however it was either not told it had a new battery, or it's hit it's limit for stop start as that feature doesn't work, although it will restart if you stall and dip the clutch quickly enough so the system works,it just doesn't want to. Even if it did work I'd turn it off though, hateful system and as much as the car runs fine, I don't trust it what with that green oval on the front.

What are the consequences of just changing the battery for a standard correctly rated battery and just not telling it the battery has been changed?

 

[Ubique]

There should be a second, smaller battery to support vehicle systems whilst autostop is restarting the engine, if that is depleted or defective, autostop will not turn off the engine.
The chemistry of the battery should be changed like-for-like, otherwise you can damage the new battery, either by under or overcharging it.

 

[BrokenBiker]

There should be a second, smaller battery to support vehicle systems whilst autostop is restarting the engine, if that is depleted or defective, autostop will not turn off the engine.

I can't find any reference to that when looking for new batteries. Google seems to think it only uses 1 AGM battery

If that is the case, why are there dedicated start stop batteries?

If there is a secondary battery it is either dead or not fitted so with that system not functioning I can't see why a standard battery can't be used

 

[Ubique]

The starter battery has a different construction and rating to cope with the extra number of large current draw events by the starter motor. Having a second, support battery is common across many marques - you can tell which don't have it by the rear light flicker when traffic lights turn green...
Some alternatively have large capacitors, although these too can fail.

Edit: My mistake, it's the Discovery Sport & Evoque that have the secondary batteries, although they're essentially a Freelander 2 in drag....

 

[BrokenBiker]

Ok, so as the start stop doesn't function, I see no need for the extra capacity of the special battery, even though they are both rated at 80Ah and 800CCA

Infact one of the stop starts is rated at 760 CCA

 

[BrokenBiker]

I have an enersys PC1500 on charge at my father's house now, will put that on as a test, it's a known good battery as my father got it from work after running it through full final stage testing in his department. If it shows no adverse effects, not that I think it will, I will buy a battery to put on as the PC1500 is a spare SHTF battery incase something needs jump starting

 

[Bladevane]

Not sure if the following is relèvent or useful but my wife’s Mini has auto start which usually doesn’t operate in the colder months of the year. I understand why. I just wonder if your vehicle is similar.

 

[BrokenBiker]

Not sure if the following is relèvent or useful but my wife’s Mini has auto start which usually doesn’t operate in the colder months of the year. I understand why. I just wonder if your vehicle is similar.

The stop start hasn't worked since I bought it in October when it was still quite mild.

I'm not bothered about the stop start, I'd turn it off if it did work anyway, just not keen on paying 200 quid for a battery that on paper is rated the same as a 95 quid alternative with a different sticker

 

[Ubique]

Ok, so as the start stop doesn't function, I see no need for the extra capacity of the special battery, even though they are both rated at 80Ah and 800CCA

Infact one of the stop starts is rated at 760 CCA

Without knowing your VIN it's impossible to tell 100% which is correct - there were two types fitted, 80Ah/800A CCA EN AGM or 80Ah/700A CCA EN EFB Both should be replaced like-for-like as the chemistry and therefore charging strategies are different. You can fit an AGM in lieu of an EFB battery but it won't be optimally charged. Do it the other way around and the EFB can fail in a spectacular fashion.

 

[Ubique]

Not sure if the following is relèvent or useful but my wife’s Mini has auto start which usually doesn’t operate in the colder months of the year. I understand why. I just wonder if your vehicle is similar.

That's probably more to do with the electrical / climate control load, autostop has a long list of inhibits (usually things that make people assume it's 'not working' - often, it is working but is inhibited) Climate control load is just one, as is drivers seat belt engaged and of course, starter battery SoH.

 

[BrokenBiker]

Without knowing your VIN it's impossible to tell 100% which is correct - there were two types fitted, 80Ah/800A CCA EN AGM or 80Ah/700A CCA EN EFB Both should be replaced like-for-like as the chemistry and therefore charging strategies are different. You can fit an AGM in lieu of an EFB battery but it won't be optimally charged. Do it the other way around and the EFB can fail in a spectacular fashion.

It currently has an 80Ah 800CCA varta f21 dynamic stop start fitted. Everything I get when I enter my reg to various sites brings those specs up as well.

 

[Ubique]

The stop start hasn't worked since I bought it in October when it was still quite mild.

I'm not bothered about the stop start, I'd turn it off if it did work anyway, just not keen on paying 200 quid for a battery that on paper is rated the same as a 95 quid alternative with a different sticker

It's not the same rating at all, one is 'rated' for autostop use, one isn't - although they have the same Ah capacity. A bit like oil grade & specification are not the same thing, you can have the correct grade but the specification is wrong.

 

[hotponyshoes]

If the SS hasn't worked since you bought it that could be due to loads of reasons. Most likely because the previous owner disabled it.

I don't think any uk freelanders have an extra battery as standard.

If you have access to JLR/SSD via a mongoose cable or something you can tell the car it's got a normal battery fitted and use a regular flooded one.
Otherwise it's a bad idea.
A normal one will work fine short term but..
The car also has a smart alternator / charging system.
If it thinks it has the original agm fitted and the battery voltage gets low it will try and charge at a higher voltage and a much faster rate than the wet battery can take. At best, that will shorten the life of the battery considerably. Also, if it thinks the battery is full it will trickle-charge it higher as well, again, shortening it's life.
If I wanted to be dramatic I'd say it could explode into flames but I've never actually seen that happen. I have seen damage caused to the car by the wrong battery boiling over and blowing acid around the engine compartment though..

Also, on my discovery, the original agm battery lasted 10yrs. That's good for any car, let alone a landrover. I replaced like-for-like.
Agm battries are twice the price but they are (supposedly) three times tougher.
So, if you disable the start/stop they should last 3 times longer than a regular one which saves you money and time and reduces the risk of anything else going wrong..

 

[Morrisman]

My Mondeo kept warning me the battery was low, and eventually the auto stop thing stopped stopping. Great, as I always turned it off when I got in the car.
Eventually I fitted a new battery about 3 years ago, after a couple of sluggish starts. Then the auto stop began working again…

For about a week, then it stopped. And hasn’t worked since.

 

[dobbslc]

I wonder if I fit some electronic gizmo to my vans battery it will just disable the stupid stop start function?
Any ideas?

 

[hotponyshoes]

Cranking spec is not particularly relevant on a s/s car as most of the starts will be when the engine is warm anyway.

They are just designed different to fit in the same space.
They need to last longer as, if they have a 5 year warranty, a start/stop car will use the battery far more times for starting than a normal car and will also have to provide the power to run everything while the car is stationary/stopped over those 5 years.

They also need to take a charge quicker as most of the discharge comes from starting the engine and you need to charge it as much as you can after leaving the traffic lights before you get to the roundabout.
If you have disabled the S/S, on some cars, it's not so bad as after the first start in the morning they don't try and bulk charge until the engine has warmed up and it's ready to activate the s/s anyway.
On other cars it's worst as they try and warm the engine up as quickly as possible so will load the alternator fully if they think the battery has spare capacity.

You could do a cold start and a test drive with a multimeter connected to see how yours behaves..

 

[hotponyshoes]

I wonder if I fit some electronic gizmo to my vans battery it will just disable the stupid stop start function?
Any ideas?

Depends on the van.

Some you can just connect a diagnostic machine and deactivate it but they are getting harder to do that without a remap now..

Most have a small sense wire connected to the battery +.
Removing that will disable the s/s but may cause other problems (warning light, reduced battery life)

My favourite way is a little device that plugs in behind the s/s switch and basically just presses the button for you each time you start the car. That's presuming you have a manual over-ride switch for the s/s function?

Or, read the handbook and see what operating conditions prevent the s/s from working normally gives you some ideas of how to bypass it.

 

[dobbslc]

I'll check for a sense wire
It's dodgy on this van as it stops the engine before the van stops moving so if I'm coming to a junction and floor it to make a space it has no power for a second but is still rolling forward and get me a bit too close to approaching traffic. Stupid dangerous intervention.

 

[hotponyshoes]

I'll check for a sense wire
It's dodgy on this van as it stops the engine before the van stops moving so if I'm coming to a junction and floor it to make a space it has no power for a second but is still rolling forward and get me a bit too close to approaching traffic. Stupid dangerous intervention.

I don't like it either.
But, friend of mine had a fairly newish Mini.
Got me to fix it when it stopped working as it saved £2 a week in fuel.
That's more than enough to cover the extra cost of replacing the battery and I'd think a bigger vehicle than a mini could save even more..

 

[dobbslc]

But I have a fuel work card and have stopped worrying too much about the environment as we've already fxxked it.