Forum Discussion

1320quick's avatar
1320quick
Explorer
Aug 31, 2013

Automatic battery disconnect???

I just went to pick up my 5th wheel from the dealership as it's been there for a couple of weeks for warranty work. When I backed up to it to hook up, the landing gear needed to go up a few inches to line up with the hitch. No problem, I hit the ext/ret button and nothing. No movement, no noise, nothing. The service person comes and and plugs the plug into my truck and magically it works. She asked if I had a battery disconnect and to my knowledge I don't but after plugging in the 7 prong RV plug to the truck once, now even disconnected from the truck everything works as expected including the landing gear. What am I missing? Is it possible there is an automatic battery disconnect or something along those lines that if it's sitting unused for a couple of weeks that it disconnects to save the battery??? This is on a 2014 Heartland Sundance XLT.
  • Call your dealer, ask him where the Disconnect Switch is. Every RV I've ever had has one.
  • I did check in battery compartment when I got home and I don't see any loose connections or a battery disconnect. It has a 90W solar charger on it and it appears to be functional based on the led's. It has dual batteries that are less than 2 months old. The monitoring panel shows the batteries at 2/3 full when I looked at that after I got home. I can't believe after a 20 minute drive home, the truck could have charged the batteries to 2/3 full if they were completely dead. I deal with lots of batteries as my bass boat has 4, my golf cart has 6, my race car has a couple so I have lots of experience with them but this one has me stumped. Well I have them both on the charger tonight and I'll see what happens.

    Sounds like adding a battery disconnect would be a good idea. Since the two 12v batteries are wired in parallel,where would be the best place to wire in the disconnect?
  • RoyB's avatar
    RoyB
    Explorer II
    Sorry to say I suspect you will be replacing your battery soon...
  • jimtoo wrote:
    No,,, it does not have an automatic battery disconnect switch.. If it sat there for 2 weeks the battery was dead due to parasitic drain. TV, fridge, radio,, alarms all have a parasitic drain on the battery.

    And when you plugged in the 7 way, you were operating from the tow vehicle battery and the tow vehicle alternator also put a charge back into the battery. Look for a battery disconnect switch and turn it off when storing so it doesn't happen again.
  • No,,, it does not have an automatic battery disconnect switch.. If it sat there for 2 weeks the battery was dead due to parasitic drain. TV, fridge, radio,, alarms all have a parasitic drain on the battery.
  • Look in the compartment where your battery/batteries are and if you have a battery disconnect it will be there.