Battery Help!

[Teacher]

Bought two new gel batteries about three weeks ago.

Been gone for those three weeks. Truck has been parked in the garage. Batteries appear dead. Truck won't start. Something seemed to have drained them.

I placed my trickle (2amp) battery booster on over night. Seemed to drain the amps to 0.

What do you recommend I do?

Should I try to charge the truck by conventional means (booster cables)? If so, which battery do I hook up to? The one on the driver's side or the passenger side?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Joe G.]

Start the truck with jumper cables. It doesn't matter which side you use since the batteries are in parallel. Take it for a drive long enuff to get a good charge on the batteries. If they don't hold a charge you may have to replace them under warranty. You will have to check to see if something is drawing too much current when nothing should be on.

 

[Teacher]

charging batteries

Thanks Joe. As always, you are most helpful to those in need.

I felt that charging them with cables was ok, but needed expert advice. The two battery set-up just confused me.

 

[Bill Stockard]

Teacher,



On the 98 and up trucks there is a fuse you can pull to stop the drain on the batteries when the truck is setting in porlonged storage. I'm not sure about the the pre-98 trucks(your '95). If this feature is on your truck, it's in the Owner's Manual and tells which fuse to pull.



Your batteries are providing backup for your radio settings, digital clock, PCM, etc. even with the ignition turned off. Over a long period of time the batteries will be depleted. I wouldn't think with new batteries and only 3 weeks would be long enough to deplete your batteries as low as yours. It sounds more like a bad battery which will drain both.



Bill

 

[Joe G.]

Bill,



What I suspect has happened is that the new batteries were not completely charged to start with. Probably ok after getting a good charge from driving. If not, back to the store. As you say, if one of them is bad that will kill both of them. I don't think a trickle charge will do much with a total of something like 1400 amp hours available in those batteries. I've managed to run mine down a couple of times. When that's happened my 10 amp charger gets hot and resets a few times before it gets them charged again.

 

[Bill Stockard]

Joe G,



I know what you mean--been there!! It does take a 10 Amp charger a long time.



What I was thinking of on the later model trucks is the following from my 2000 Owner's Manual:

"Vehicle Storage

If you are leaving your vehicle dormant for more than 21 daysl, you may want to take steps to protect your batteries. Disconnect the negative cable from both of your batteries. Or you can remove fuse #17 (Ignition Off Draw) in the fuse panel. "



The disadvantage of doing either of the above the actions is that you will have to re-set your digital clock, compass, and radio presets. Better than a dead battery.



Bill