2001 Dodge Roadtrek 190 Popular House Battery

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Download the Concorde Lifeline PDF battery manual and study the RECOVERY section. Trouble is...

Our government thinks their edicts over ride battery manufacturer rules and maintenance tips. Good luck finding a charger. I'm surprised California does not demand autos in sub zero conditions be started then driven immediately at freeway speeds, to minimize carbon footprinting.

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Isn't the Optima battery an AGM?

The battery might have an intermittent shorted cell. In other words, it's toast. I'd just try replacing it with a good AGM, and see how that goes. AGMs tend to be hardy units, and can stand a little over/under charging. I used to have an old dumb Centurion converter/charger in my 2002 C190P and it worked well with the AGMs I put in it after I bought it. I would go that route to start.

The converter is a Magnetek 6345. I took the battery to an Autozone and they said they could not determine if the battery is bad unless it had at least a 50% charge. They recommended I trickle charge it for a couple of hours which I did and also cleaned the terminals and connectors. After less than a half hour on the trickle charger, it read charged, but every 20 seconds or so the needle would drop into charging and immediately go back to charged. I put the battery back in the RV and the meter still read,fair below good and full. The battery is an Optima blue top from Sam's Club with no date. We acquired this RV from a neighbor's estate sale and would like to have an opportunity to try it out as an RV choice without pouring a lot of money into it. It is is very good condition with 41,000 miles.

Get a voltmeter and check your battery. What voltage is the "fair" reading on the monitor? You might have a dirty connection between monitor and battery.

Gel batteries generally use a different charge voltage than flooded or AGM. You'll need to investigate. The good news is that anything other than gel will probably be an improvement.

Which converter/charger does it have? It will either be a Magnatek or a Centurion. Either way, you can probably replace the gel with a decent AGM. They're pretty forgiving, even if you can't adjust the charge profile on the older charger to match the type. If you're handy with electrical stuff, you could replace the converter/charger with a newer make/model. Contact Best Converter and ask Randy if they still make PI chargers that are plug and play replacements for the old one. He'll know.