Forum Discussion

Brownleaf's avatar
Brownleaf
Explorer
Oct 18, 2023

chassis battery charge ?

I drive my motorhome a few miles every 9-10 days. It occurred to me that the chassis battery is not getting charged enough. Thus the above question does plugging it in to charge house batteries affect the chassis battery? I don't have devices to check charge, I guess an auto parts store could check it. Gas was low yesterday but there was gas in there and once yesterday and once today it would not turn over and catch till the second try ( where I pumped the gas pedal to the floor before the second try where it did start. thanks Doug

28 Replies

  • Your description of how/why you think the start battery isn’t charging is a bit suspect. Because if it starts it starts. And has not sure how battery charge is related to fuel. IE it isn’t.
    But is that why you drive it “a few miles every 10 days”? To charge the battery? Also an odd routine. And a few miles won’t do much ifnthe battery is already low.
    Why not just throw a battery maintainer on it and not worry about it? That’s the cheapest easiest solution and requires no time nor effort for your periodic short drives you’re doing now.
  • Bobbo's avatar
    Bobbo
    Explorer III
    When I owned a motorhome, I installed the Trik-L-Start like was mentioned above. It worked great. Highly recommended.
  • RK, explain the problem with short jaunts and engine not getting to proper o perating temperature. What happens- what are the consequences? Is that just a battery issue or something else? Doug
  • no way to know. likely would depend on the level of discharge. But, of more concern would be running the engine for short periods before engine gets to proper operating temperature. A 30-minute drive once a month should do it. Recommemd you reconsider the Trik-L-Start device. Inexpensive ans EZ to install.

    Trik-L-Start
  • RK thanks, I will pass on such a device for now, but wonder if I take the rv out every 9-10 days how far would I need to drive it to keep a chassis battery charge up? Doug
  • In the motorhomes we've owned plugging into shore power charged only the house batteries. But, we added a device...can't recall the name...that diverted a small amount of energy directed to the coach batteries to the chassis battery keeping it charged.