I just replaced my chassis battery on my ACE. It was the Motocraft OEM FLA battery that came with the coach, So on a 2015 chassis it could be 7+ years old.
I have never had a lick of problem with it until last weekend on the way back from Tampa we stopped in Bushnell to fill up on cheap gas. When i went to start the engine I had nothing! No dash lights, nada, zippo. I did notice the gauges moved ever so slightly. So I reached over to the emergency start button, held it for about 30 seconds and turned the key - I got maybe 1 rotation of the starter, but that was progress!
So I got up and started the generator. I had replaced my trombetta relay last year with a higher amperage heavy duty one and I figured instead of holding the emergency start switch to get some juice in the chassis battery I'd let the converter do it at a higher voltage and amperage. After about 5 minutes I tried again and it cranked right up. I shut off the generator and continued home.
I was pretty resigned to buying a new battery but when I got home and got the RV unloaded it started right up. I measured the chassis battery voltage at 12.6 VDC after sitting for a half hour so I figured I needed to load test it. Of course I couldn't finf my 100 Amp battery load tester so I conencted a 500 watt inverter to it and tried to turn it on - it immediately whined with no load. I measured the battery voltage again and it was 10.1 VDC. All cells had plenty of water so this was a classic dead cell symptom.
Checked online to see if my local Wally World had a replacement 3 year free replacement battery and they did. I also noted that HomeDepot had the same 3 year free replacement battery(Exide Brand) in stock at the same price but for me, retired Navy, that means 10% cheaper - $90 instead of $100.
So I loaded up the core and headed to HomeDepot fully expecting to find old stock batteries (6+ months old manufacturing date) and expected to continue on to Wally World: BUT NOOOOOO! They had this month's date on their batteries so I scooped one up, brought it home and installed it and fully expect another 5+ years out of this battery.
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Ted & Melinda
2016 ACE 27.1
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