I have a leisure battery which I bought two years ago, I do not look after it particularly well, certainly not as well as mentioned in posts above.
It was bought second hand from Ebay(I think) so I don't know the real age etc.
I do keep it charged, topping up aprox once a month, again this is when I remember and the battery will last us for a weeks camp without getting into trouble. I do admit I don't have motor movers or anything really heavy, just lights and water pump, tv and phone chargers....
I paid about £30 to £40 for it so I'm very happy.
You are buying a brand new battery and having problems....
I'm not taking sides about what is happening to your battery but do feel either there is a drain on the battery or your battery is not man enough for the job.
I can not believe, despite what you say, that batteries supplied to you are all faulty or near the end of their useful lives.
Possible ways forward.....
Is there not a code on the batteries that give the age?
Can you not get a battery with a longer guarantee (3 to 5 years perhaps?)
Get and auto electrician to check your drain on the battery and the efficiency of the charging circuits.
Yet again the first battery was sold NOT fully charged & the charger we later discovered was not capable of recovering it properly. We told the dealer what sort of charger we had he assured us it would be ok - he was incorrect. Frankly we now know he isn't that `up' on quite a lot of things that he ought to be but didn't know that then !
The second battery was supposed to be fully charged & probably was but most likely had sat i stock for some time & was not on a charger & again we had not been properly advised.
The 3rd battery I refer to was already IN the van ! God knows how old & no way of knowing what had been done to it or perhaps more importantly NOT done to it before we bought the van.
Having researched about leisure batteries the concensus of opinion from experts - ie the people who make the things & some of the dealers who sell them is that they DO start to lose charge & if they are sitting in storage for several months without being maintained on a smart charger then their life WILL be reduced considerably.
So yes we have been unlucky but only by being sold a battery which was not properly charged then a battery that had almost certainly lost a lot of the charge before we got it. Then of course the last battery was of unknown age & maintenance as I already explained.
The new banner battery however DID showing fully charged when stuck on our new smart charger & after a few trips away proves to be working correctly so as we now have a battery which was as it should be & a charger for for the job I don't anticipate any more bad luck - or rather bad service & bad advice. But then that is pretty unlucky imo.
So yes bad luck is what we did have - According to the experts anyway ! :)
should add that we have very cold winters here indeed & for prolonged periods. If a battery isn't properly up to scratch I rather think that will knock it dead no ?
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Topic: Leisure Battery
