Ranger Mods

Just a quick one,
As the title, do I have a slightly flat battery?

I returned home last Thursday on crawl mode due to the clowns at my dealership deleting my tune files from the ECU, anyway I've got an appointment to have the Wildtrak dyno's (again) tomorrow and to avoid any further hassles I've not driven it since, today I could not but fail to notice a constant pinging noise emitting from somewhere under the dash and the auxiliary battery has shut down, is this noise an indication that the main battery has dropped its voltage over the past five days and need to be put on a trickle charger ? The voltage reading is 12.5 volts. It still starts the Ranger.

Have never heard the noise even with a flat or nearly flat battery. Noise isn't a third party module, brake controller or UHF etc? At 12.5v it is more than sufficient to start anyway and it probably still sitting between 80 to 85% SOC. When idling that alternator easily pushes 50 amps if need be, tested with a current clamp.

Oh dear, the embarrassment and the woes and hassles of suffering from tinnitus (due to shooting a lot of large bore rifles) the pinging was a remote in the glove box trying to tell me its battery was running flat ,

No shame in that. I know of a very experienced 4 wheeler who took a mechanic on a test drive because of a rattle in his gearbox at certain speeds. Turned out to be his spare keys in the centre console

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Hay mate I'm seeing 12.0 v after sitting over night with a quality ohm meter and 11.8 on my mates 2017 wildtrack and 14.5 with motor running, me thinking they run a 10 v starter?

Doubt it but I would say both the batteries overall are in great condition and still easily able to supply the huge current draw to start the engine.

My old battery would hold 12.3 over night but was stuffed and could not supply the cold cranking amps required to turn the car over although everything else worked fine.

hay Stewart, Interesting to see what a different brand battery than standard will hold as most 12v batteries hold 12.6 plus mate

My new one is 12.6v usually.

hoges wrote:hay Stewart, Interesting to see what a different brand battery than standard will hold as most 12v batteries hold 12.6 plus mate

Gday Hoges, have you got Dual Battery Mode off / Smart Charge on?

That would explain the over night drop in voltage, as the battery is never fully charged when Smart Charge is on. All related to reducing fuel consumption but is horrible for batteries.


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Smart charge off Mate Charging 14.5v

Hay Stewart what brand battery did you use mate

Since enabling DBM I haven't had any battery issues, haven't noticed any increase in fuel use.

I was told I would need to fit a DC2DC charger in my caravan to keep the 120ah AGM battery charged.

No doubt on Smart mode I probably would have, but on DBM the output voltage was the same at the battery, Anderson plug and the caravan battery, all 14.8 volts.

An added bonus is that Ranger battery is now charged to 83%, in Smart mode the best was 50%

I purchased a Bluetooth battery monitor for the van battery so I could watch it on my phone while travelling.

OBDLINKMX and the Bluetooth monitor always read the same voltage and I am happy with that.

I also turned off the 240v to the van fridge and it ran for 55 hours before it dropped to 12.2 volts.

It is a compressor type fridge.

The fridge will run until the voltage falls to 11.7 so I am very impressed.

Plus I save big $s not having to purchase something I don't need.

One thing I have noticed with the stock Ranger battery, it doesn't hold a charge long.

If you don't use it often it drops voltage and charged capacity percentage quickly.

I am going to look about and see if I can get a better battery.

It may be a calcium battery thing.

Just spoke to a friend of mine, he is the tech guy for Independant Batteries.

According to him I will never get the battery fully charged as it needs 16volts to fully charge a calcium battery.

He said the ultimate battery is an Ambulance battery, they are brilliant but expensive.

The next is a Bosch LN3 or a Super Start SS75TI.

The SS75TI will fit but requires a plastic lip in the bottom of the battery box to be ground away.

An SS66TI fits straight in.

https://superstart.com.au/ss75ti-high-p ... ttery.html

Another thing, never charge an AGM battery in Recon mode, you will damage it.

What a difference a proper battery makes.
Charged to 100% and @12.75 Volts after standing o/night
Five days without use and @ 12.5 Volts and 96% charged.
Drove car approximately 8 klms and again @ 100% and 12.75 volts.

The SS75TI fitted straight in the Ranger.

The fitter said that they sometimes don't fit on manual transmission models, the battery tray is smaller than an auto tray.

It will fit it the plastic lip on the battery is ground off.