Sprinter Battery

[john445]

We have a Thor Freedom Elite on a Mercedes Benz Sprinter chassis. This was our first summer with a new 2018 model.

After not using the camper for a few weeks, the Sprinter battery is dead. Our MB dealer checked the battery after the first instance and said all is fine.

We are now trying to get the camper in for winterization and again the battery is dead. We purchased a DeWalt Jump Starter and still the the engine will not start.

Our camper is nose in with a single car driveway so we cannot pull a car close to try a jump start.

Anyone else having this problem, it seems sitting for a few weeks should not drain the battery?

Thanks, John

[loggenrock]

I've got a 2015 Sprinter. It can sit for several weeks and start right up. I do NOT use the battery disconnect. When I winterize it I do put a Battery Tender on both the house AND chassis batteries.

[CharlesinGA]

midnightsadie wrote:
to me theres something wrong ,our sprinter is 12yrs old and just replaced the mb battery in the spring, just for saftey.theres a unwanted draw on yours. some where.

Is yours a T1N model with the 5 cylinder engine? if so, it does not suffer from these parasitic drains on the system. Even earlier NCV3 models don't seem to do this much, but once you get past about 2010 it becomes a problem.

My '07 View on an '06 chassis can sit for a month or more with no issues. I do however try to drive it fairly regular to keep things working.

Charles

[CharlesinGA]

Well, no one so far has brought up that Sprinters have very high vampire/parasitic drains on the battery. If you are going to leave the MH sit for more than 5 days or so, you should use the battery disconnect to prevent these drains from drawing the battery down. The owners manual tells you how to do this, the disconnect is the battery ground wire, located inside the passenger compartment near the accelerator pedal. You press a button on the connector and pull the cable off the stud on the firewall, and leave it flopping until you are ready to go again.

One word of caution, give the vehicle several minutes to get itself electronically sorted out after shutdown before disconnecting the cable.

Is this a 2018 coach on a 2017 chassis? if so the information is in the owners manual

2017 Sprinter Owners Manual

See pages 116 and 117 for operation of the "Battery Isolating Switch".

If you happen to have a 2018 chassis, the information is the same.

2018 Sprinter Owners Manual

Pages 118 and 119, same info.

Charles

[john445]

Thanks for all the great replies. We are buying a trickle charger tonight and hopefully that will work. We are about to put the camper into winter storage at a facility that probably does not have outlets to use. Not sure how that will work after five months in a cold building.

[charwan]

DITTO. Battery Minder. I use them all the time on Lawn Mower, tractor, and M/H.

[Gonzo42]

I have a small "smart" charger attached thru the cig lighter socket and powered by the standard AC outlet, since I'm hooked to the shore power. This keeps the Chassis battery up, and the shore power on-board charger keeps the house batteries good.

[midnightsadie]

to me theres something wrong ,our sprinter is 12yrs old and just replaced the mb battery in the spring, just for saftey.theres a unwanted draw on yours. some where.

[richclover]

I use a battery minder on all my toys if they're to sit for more than a week. 10 days at most. The "keep alive" stuff in most modern vehicles will kill a battery over time. The late-model or brand new oil co. SUV's and trucks parked at the local airport for weeks at a time invariably need jump starting.

To the OP: Put a slow, trickle charge on your Sprinter for at least an overnight. IMHO, worst you can do to a battery is kill it then put a high rate charge into it.

[DougE]

This is common on my older Sprinter. Don't know if its Mercedes or the RV conversion but I always pull the ground cable off if mine's going to sit more than a day or two.

[Sam_Spade]

john445 wrote:
Our MB dealer checked the battery after the first instance and said all is fine.

Anyone else having this problem, it seems sitting for a few weeks should not drain the battery?

A really LOT of shops don't know how to properly check batteries.
The answer you got of "all is fine" isn't good enough.

They should have told you, specifically for that model, what you should be doing with the batteries during storage. If the dealer doesn't seem to know (have you looked in your owners manuals?) then contact the manufacturer.

The battery might be bad due to neglect while sitting on the lot.