DIY How-to: Take the Aux Battery Offline

[Mr._Bill]

So went out to my truck this morning to take my dog on his daily hike and - yup, you guessed it - dead battery.

About to to try this aux battery delete. I’ll let you guys know how it goes…

How old are the batteries in it?

Is it driven daily? Short trips?

If you have them tested, you will probably find it is the main battery that died.

Have you had any indication of battery issues, like the ESS or Aux Switch unavailable messages?

Deleting the Aux battery doesn't actually solve anything, it just reduces the total capacity available, and removes the low battery reboot protection for the computers.

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[ShadowsPapa]

How old are the batteries in it?

Is it driven daily? Short trips?

If you have them tested, you will probably find it is the main battery that died.

Have you had any indication of battery issues, like the ESS or Aux Switch unavailable messages?

Deleting the Aux battery doesn't actually solve anything, it just reduces the total capacity available, and removes the low battery reboot protection for the computers.

Yep - just as likely the main battery. In any case, it could be dead for a lot of reasons. IA lot depends on how it's driven/used.

 

[KevinM60]

A little battery update here.

On one of these threads I had posted how I only drive my Glad as my weekend escape vehicle and it sits in the driveway all week.
After reading about people's battery issues, I monitored the charging system on mine and found that when I first started driving on Saturday morning the charge would show 14.7 and after a few hours be down to 12.8.
By the following Tuesday I had a battery tender hooked up and the following Saturday when I fired up the system was at 12.7 right away.
My thoughts now are that if I stick with the battery tender and keep the ESS system as is that when I do start having problems the system will tell me and I will know to test the batteries separately to see if one is starting to fail.
At that point I will probably replace both batteries with the most robust batteries I can get my hands on.

 

[AEsco48]

I am surprised there is not class action or investigation going from NHTSA for this small aux battery setup. You are left stranded when the aux battery goes. Sometimes the Jeep will shut itself off and this dangerous in middle of highway or blind turn.

On top of that you can’t conventionally jumpstart this vehicle. If none of the workarounds get Jeep started, you have to wait for tow truck.

This is a dumb design and for what….meeting epa and gas regulations with an ESS?! Not surprised everyone is bypassing or going to dual battery setup

It has protections in place to turn of power hungry accessories if the batteries have issues, found the info in the owners manual.

 

[AEsco48]

My wife would instead suggest that I, myself, lose 20 pounds and that would make her and the truck happier.



Try removing the IBS, charging each battery independently with a quality AGM battery charger, and put it all back together. It helped my 2020. Things worked fine after that.

When the ESS stopped working in the 2021 Grand Cherokee my wife had - she told me she wanted it fixed.
No problem with her new Jeep - pull up to a stop sign and it stops moving, press the pedal and it starts moving again. Go over 25 miles and pull up to a stop and the engine shuts off, press the pedal and the Jeep starts moving then the engine starts up again.

Last week we did a 4hr road trip, the ESS worked a couple times after driving 3.5hr.

Two days ago i took both batteries out of the jeep, charged each of them on a charger (the aux battery on a charger that has a AGM mode), no dice. ESS still shows not ready.

 

[Mr._Bill]

Last week we did a 4hr road trip, the ESS worked a couple times after driving 3.5hr.

Two days ago i took both batteries out of the jeep, charged each of them on a charger (the aux battery on a charger that has a AGM mode), no dice. ESS still shows not ready.

How old are the batteries?

BTW, they are both AGM batteries.

 

[AEsco48]

How old are the batteries?

BTW, they are both AGM batteries.

March will be 3yr. Been doing this for 1.5 years.

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