2019 Honda CRV battery dies, might've figured out hiow

General Discussion
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1

Friday I arrived at tge folks place to find that dad had tried to leave to run errands but the battery was stone dead. He used his jump pack and went on a 8mi round trip and it started fine.

Saturday we’re doing various projects going in and out if t hr garage when he noticed the light in his hitch cover was on, as we’re all the running lights. Started up fine and he drove it around just to be safe. First time in just over 7yrs we’ve had it turn the lights on like this. He’s going to have his preferred shop test the battery but either way it’s probably old enough to just replace it. Might have a parasitic drain but he also only puts 4,000mi a year on it. Only problem with it since he bought it in the spring of 2019. We’ve been putting it ti work had 1,000lbs including the trailer hooked behind for a dump run the week before. 32mpg mixed compared to 23 from the 2007 Crv in the same usage.

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2

parasitic drain? Need to find out why the lights were on, that’s the battery drain. Once that is corrected, replace the battery, if the battery that was in the car since 2019, definitely replace it. Might consider a battery maintainer. I use a solar panel that plugs into a power port. Or, he might consider a battery tender that plugs into house 120V service.

3

I guess that means that y’all had turned the running lights on for whatever reason while working in the garage and forgot to turn them off??? If someone left the lights on, then yes that can/will drain the battery depending on if the vehicle has a battery saver that automatically turn off the lights after x time, and or the battery reserve time is way down and was drained before it timed out…

Sorry, that was/is a little hard to follow, sounds like we are missing some info/part of the story…

4

If car drove “fine” with no dash battery light I’d assume alternator was ok. Did you check running voltage?

5

There’s a couple maintainers in the garage, he’s got one hooked to the battery when it’s parked.

Going to replace the battery with a group size that has more reserve capacity that works better with this generation of crv, just has to pick one up at Costco soon. This battery is either original or 3-4yrs old.

6

Running voltage is ok and it’s charging with the engine running, just needs to drive more than 3x a week. It’s getting a new battery either way.

7

So was it or was it not the weakest link in the electrical system?

8

More frequent use will increase the number of opportunities to leave the lights on after parking.

Plug in the battery maintainer once a month, it doesn’t need to be used every day.

9

I found the following which could be a cause…

MC-10156621-0001.pdf