To clarify the situation. Have had the van on the towbar twice without problems. Flat batteies have occured while the car is sat on roadside at home (i.e. on three occasions I have went to use the car and the battery was flat (not on consecutive days either)). If the fridge feed is constantly live then I am thinking that the fitter has not fitted it correctly as it is not being controled (turned off) by the ignition and therefore either way it is a bodge job (call for the sheriff!!) and I will be insisting on it being rectified. But I still need to know the exact cause of the problem as I have had the battery checked and apart from it being flat it is in good condition.
you say the battery itself is fine, have you had the charging system checked, i you hae a multimeter you can do it yourself, connet the multimeter to the battery, then check its reading with the engine running,it should read upwards of 13.5Volts, then turn on all the electrics, check again, it should still read over 13V at least, bring the engine revs to around 2000rpm, or driving speed if you dont have a rev counter it should go up to 13.5 upwards again, if its lower then theres a fault in the charging system, this could also have been caused by the fitter
Have checked the battery and charging system and all is in order. I will be going to work at 1/2 3 so will see if battery has gone flat again then (fuse has been removed from the fridge feed line) I am begining to think that the fitter has cut corners somwhere but I would like to be armed with plenty of facts before I challenge him over it. Its booked in for him to look at it again on Monday
Have you checked that there is nothing in the car itself that is drawing power. We had a problem once with the glove box not closing like it should so the light inside it stayed on all the time, but of course we could not see that it was on! Took us a while to track that down!
I think you are barking up the wrong tree with the fridge feed. The battery is not holding it's charge without the van connected, therefore, something in the car drawing a current, highly unlikely unless as Jennifer says a light is left on, possibly in the boot or somewhere not visible. If the fitter had cocked up and shorted something somewhere, then it would draw so much juice it would blow a fuse (or catch light). Finally, battery knackered which I would think is the answer.
As for the fridge feed, don't know if mine is standard but I wired it myself thus:
Connect to live terminal of Battery (+) to in line fuse to relay switch (closer to battery terminal the safer) . Relay switch to S socket. Alternator to relay switch.
Therefore fridge runs direct from battery but only when the alternator is generating a current which operates the relay and charges the battery at the same time. As soon as the engine stops then the fridge is disconnected from the battery. This is how I was advised to connect by the auto electrician at our local Halfords and havn't had a prob yet. If anyone thinks this is wrong, please tell Halfords not me!...Mick
Rigth, update time. I said the fitter was not convincing!! I know nothing about car/caravan electrics but it would seem that the permanent live feed wire he was testing was not the fridge but one that feeds the interior lights to the van and it should be live a all times, so that was not the problem. He has exchanged the split charge relay box just in case and they even phoned Towequip and asked them what the problem could be. They told them to open the relay box and inside is an adjuster which you can use to change at what battery voltage the relay kicks in. I will have to wait now to see if the "fix" works but it would seem that the towbar is wired correctly so if the battery does go flat again I will have to look elswhere (dont want to spend £60 on a new battery if it is not that!!). Any further suggestions welcome and thanks to everyone for the help so far
Yes all lights go out when they should. Even parked it up and used the key to lock it so that the alarm is not using power (facility to allow likes of dogs to be locked in car and not set of sensor)Will be off to Hanley swan this weekend so hope it all goes ok
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Topic: Flat Battery
