Aux Battery Charging?

[Rainman519]

Yesterday I noticed that my stop/start function wasn't engaging. I flipped through the notifications and found the attached. Has anyone seen this before and s it normal? If so, how long does the aux battery take to charge? I drove about 18 miles yesterday and it still said it was charging when I got home. No other notifications/indications as to the aux battery being bad or anything. Thanks.

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[Blade1668]

Possible a dead battery aka bad cell in it. Early last year I think that was a couple cases of that. It can kill the main battery too.
https://www.jeepgladiatorforum.com/forum/threads/auxilary-battery-gladiator.35692/

 

[Deadeye]

Its totally normal. There was a post a while back, and the math came out to about 18-33 minutes of running to fully charge after a starting event. After enough starts, you could have a sufficient power deficit to require charging time. That seemed like a pretty high charge time to me, but if an online poster claims to be an electrical engineer, who am I to doubt?

Regardless, there are quite a few conditions that need to be met for ESS to work, all covered in the owner's manual and all normal. Battery charge, cabin temp, etc. And that is before considering all the cold weather effects on batteries.

All that being said, there have been a lot of defective batteries for these vehicles out of Mexico. I have personally gone through 2, before finally getting a good one. The ignition took more cranking to start a couple days before it actually died. If the issue seems to persist, take it for warranty.

 

[Mark Doiron]

It had been a couple weeks that I hadn't driven my Gladiator when I saw something related: An alert at engine start that the aux battery wasn't properly charged and therefore the aux switches would not work. Naturally I tried an aux switch (for my air compressor) and it did not work. The odd thing: My aux battery is a full-size Odyssey AGM battery, not the little OEM motorcycle battery. Not only would a problem with it disable my air compressor, but it would also keep me from turning on my comm rack with all of its radios, and my aftermarket driving lights. The error did go away after driving a few miles and has not returned since (despite the stupid cold weather we're having right now).

 

[Blade1668]

I will defer to many others here on this, most of my experience is with the 4.0 and like generation Jeeps.

 

[jebiruph]

Yesterday I noticed that my stop/start function wasn't engaging. I flipped through the notifications and found the attached. Has anyone seen this before and s it normal? If so, how long does the aux battery take to charge? I drove about 18 miles yesterday and it still said it was charging when I got home. No other notifications/indications as to the aux battery being bad or anything. Thanks.

This alert is for the main battery charging as reported by the battery sensor, not the aux battery.

 

[rjs-az]

I was a little surprised how quickly my batteries went bad. Not sure if it could be related but will share my story.

I had to have both my batteries (main and aux/ESS) @ 33k miles and just 15 months! This was days before a 7 day trip to Canyonlands (down the Flint to the Maze Overlook / Millard and then back up and around the White Rim trail and out the Schafer trail). I got lucky...started getting the "aux switch disabled due to charging" warning for a few days before the battery died. Took it in and they said both batteries had to be replaced.

Coincidentally (?), I do keep my ESS disabled by pulling the open hood sensor. I can't imagine it being related and that causing anything with respect to the batteries. I live in Phoenix and yeah it does get hot, but pre-COVID I have covered parking at work and post-COVID since at least April of 2020 the Jeep is always parked inside (although my garage does get pretty warm).

 

[brancky3]

I had to get my battery / secondary battery replaced because of this. It would be 'ESS not ready due to battery charging' non stop, it took 250+ miles on a road trip for it to finally charge enough to be ready.... but then it was back to the 'battery charging' message the next day

 

[Rainman519]

That's terrible!! You can see from my pic that I only have 7209 miles on it, always garaged etc. What a PITA if I'll need to replace the battery (either one) in the near future. Thanks for the information gents.

 

[Rainman519]

Had to happen when we have the coldest weather this year, and we're slated to possibly get 10-20 inches of snow by Friday (how can I play with a bad battery? ). Called my dealer and they "haven't replaced many" but said it will be replaced under warranty if it's (they're) defective. I just put it on a battery tender just in case, and I'll make sure to drive it as much as possible until I can get it to the dealer. As always, I appreciate the assistance of the forum members! Stay safe if you're in the path of this historic winter invasion!!

 

[rjs-az]

@Pepe "stoop" and "hack", hmmm - judgmental much? I understand those who wouldn't want to do it, but I wouldn't judge them one way or the other.

My service advisor said it was fine - every service since the first he also made sure the tech didn't reconnect it on each service.

 

[brancky3]

Called my dealer and they "haven't replaced many" but said it will be replaced under warranty if it's (they're) defective. I just put it on a battery tender just in case, and I'll make sure to drive it as much as possible until I can get it to the dealer. As always, I appreciate the assistance of the forum members! Stay safe if you're in the path of this historic winter invasion!!

Yea, this should definitely be under warranty. I have an aftermarket speaker amp, subwoofer amp, and aftermarket headlights all wired up to the battery and it was still covered.

 

[Rainman519]

OK, new development. Called the dealer again to take the JTR in to have the battery checked, and this SA I talked to said that the ASS feature "is designed" to disable itself when the outside temperatures are cold (he said he believes it's below 30F), as a measure to prevent draining the battery and having it die at a stoplight etc. While this sounds pretty plausible, this would effectively mean that the ASS is inactive all winter for those of us living in colder climates. First I've heard of this, and it's not in the manual, nor can I find it elsewhere. Google is full of returns that ASS is disabled when temps are either to high or to low, but again, this is the first I've heard of it. Anyone else got info on this?

 

[Binfordtools]

On my 2018 JLU the start/stop quit working (thankfully). When I had it in the dealer for a seat heater replacement, they noticed the start/stop wasn't working so they replaced the axillary battery. It worked for a month, maybe two, then quite again. That was in 2018, hasn't worked since, haven't missed it one bit! Hoping when my JT comes in it too will eventually stop working.

 

[Dqban]

I got the warning. through it on a trickle charger over night. It went away.

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