I have a CTEK 7000 which came with battery connectors so you don't need croc clips. No problem leaving it connected for long or short top-ups and you don't have to disconnect the battery.

Following on from yesterday had the pleasure of a visit from Land Rover Assist to sort me out. On arrival found the battery down to 3.9V and a current drain (using his neat little clip on ammeter) of just over 1 Amp. Resulting in totally dead car. Tried jump starting first by connecting his jump leads from his 62 reg Disco4 (having first to disconnect the smart charing sensing lead from his battery to fool the Disco into putting the Alternator into circuit - too clever by half now) but not enough juice to turn my FL2 over. Out comes second power pack connected in parallel with the Disco leads, hey presto we have contact. Left to run for 10 mins and shut down again. Battery drain now 0.1A, normal. LRA guy puts his fancy battery test meter on my battery and battery comes back as GOOD with no problems. Car restarted and windows all reset as well as everything else and running normally. Question then is what was the problem. Official answer was a "Module Spike"??? I think that might be code for "I haven't really got any idea, but it's sorted now!". Interesting that at the end I had to complete a LR Battery Survey as LR are gathering as much info as they can on electrical issues especially battery drain. Anyway, happy bunny again for now and let's hope it's a bit like lightning and doesn't strike again. The LRA man was, as the AA advert says (which is who they are really), a very very nice man!

[/i]

My Freelander 2011 has failed to start on two occasions. The first time Land Rover had the car for two weeks and could find nothing wrong. They downloaded some new software and said that would fix the problem. It didn't. 6 months later it failed to start again. This time LR told me it was due to lack of usage. I believed them and bought a PowerPack to start me up next time the battery is flat. But now having read all the comments in this Forum I can only conclude that there is a fault in the Freelander that LR do not know how to solve.

I am hugely disappointed. I read before buying the car that it had electrical problems. I thought it wouldn't happen to me but how wrong can you be.

Just another one to add to the post. Same problem with flat battery on 2011 FL2, been back to LR 3 times but couldn't find fault, last time LR assist came out, the technician suggested it could be the Bluetooth/telephone system. He had experienced similar issues on the Disco3. Since then I have always finished the call before switching off the engine and no problem. Interested if there is a software fix yet (3 years on).

Found it handy to keep snap on power pack and jump leads

My 2007MY HSE has had flat battery incidents on about 10 occasions over the last 5 years. I could not ever find a fault. One day fine, then totally dead in the morning. a quick charge or a jump start and then it works fine for months. The only thing I can put it down to is continuing to use the Bluetooth phone connection after shutting down the engine.

The bluetooth problem has been mentioned here before. Only once happened to me and I THINK it was because I used the tailgate unlock switch and didn't double lock afterwards. Lots of discussion on here and multiple suggested causes. Can only suggest you search well and try to cover all eventualities.

Read with interest the issues on battery draining. I have a FL TD4 which has been fine up until two months ago, since then a complete nightmare due to battery draining. Have put in new battery to no avail, drained again the next day, jump started and drained again the following day. I think the issue is due to bad close down, if wipers are left on intermittent accidentaly then this can cause a drain down, however I have been carefully turning everything off and now find that there is still a drain down problem - time to change car methinks as I don't like the feeling of total unreliability that this is giving me, shame as I like the car, but I want to feel I can get home!

Hi all
Jumped into freelander this morning..flat battery?
AA came out stuck test meter on 10.4v and no current drain ( clamp meter test).
Jump started it and checked all readings 80A going into the battery and full 14.6v.
Stopped engine after 10 min on tick over, re-tested the battery and it came back as full?
Started the wagon drove 16 miles to battery centre they fitted bigger battery (same size as stop/start) and load tested my original battery, the old fashioned way first ( prong load test machine) and it was bang on the money. They are putting it on a special machine to cycle the battery for 16hrs.

Nothing was left on in the car over night but cannot explain what drained a full battery which is now testing perfect.

Any ideas?

Regards
Ben (GONE) FL2 2008 SE (manual) Santorini Black, the expensive one
(LEFT WITH) 300tdi Defender 90 the cold, reliable & sensible one

Last edited by defenderben on 1st Mar 2013 8:12 pm. Edited 1 time in total

Did you double lock or single lock when you left it. If single lock the systems do not shut down and that may have led to a drain on the battery. Double lock will force everything to shutdown and full arm the alarm.

Depends on how they tested your old battery - you should remove the surface voltage before the test to obtain reliable results.Some test machines can do it by their self otherwise you have to sit the battery for few hours or at least switch on the headlights for 3 - 5 mins and perform the test.If they didn't did this even the bad battery can be diagnosed as OK.

Interesting...I think I only locked it once last night as I was in a rush. That may well answer my mystery. In fact I'm out to double lock it now as I did not do it again tonight

Thanks (GONE) FL2 2008 SE (manual) Santorini Black, the expensive one
(LEFT WITH) 300tdi Defender 90 the cold, reliable & sensible one

I thought someone on here looked into the single or double locking, and in both cases the car shuts down, just does it quicker with double licking.

Yes, there's a table of all the relevant times from the Topix manual somewhere on here. It even shuts down if left unlocked, just takes a bit longer.

I've posted this a few times, the manufacturer does not make a car that drains the battery if not double locked. As said, single locking takes a little longer to shut down, sorry the pics a bit small but it's 24 minutes longer.

I have also left my car in the garage unlocked for a week with no problems.

Once shutdown battery drain is less than 1/40th of an amp if the modules are behaving themselves.

The someone was him. ^^^^^^^.