About 3 years ago, I had an incident where the chassis battery discharged for no apparent reason on our '00 Four Winds/Ford E350- no lights were left on, doors closed, ign in lock, etc. The battery was new in 2010.
I recharged the battery, and all was fine until last week when we returned from our 11 day trip. The MH set for a couple days for cleanout, then we headed to town to top off the fuel and propane, and dump wastewater. I parked it, then changed the oil. Upon restarting, it struggled a bit but started. Odd. Restarts after than were fine, so I moved it to a grassy area to wash it in a couple days.
Again, no lights were left on, doors closed, ign in lock, etc.
I washed it two days later, then went to start it to move it to our storage area, and it was dead. A push and hold of the emergency start button for about 5 seconds was all it took, and while holding, it fired right up. I moved the unit to the storage location and put my 10/30/50A charger on 10a for a few days; the starting charge current was about 14 amps. Over then next couple days, it dropped to 1 amp, and the voltage reached 15.5ish.
Over the next few days, I checked it daily to see if it was discharging again - no, it's holding the charge.
However, the resting voltage is 13.5 volts! I've rarely monitored the chassis battery voltage but when I've checked it in the past, I seem to recall it was around 12+ volts. The house batteries (2 GolfCart batteries) rest at 12.4 volts for about a month after a good charge.
After discussing the issue with my son who is a seasoned auto parts store counterperson, he suggests that I may have shorted plates, and the battery may not have much life left. I've never heard of shorted place increasing the voltage - each cell is 2 volts... and if one is shorted, my logic is that it should read 10 to 11 volts.
I know running any battery to zero volts will vastly shorten the life, so I'm prepared to replace it when it finally dies.
Opinions?
2016 Forest River Sunseeker 2250SLEC Chevrolet 6.0L
