FYI Vectra

[Pat & Bill]

One day the monitor panel was out, the slides would not come in, the jacks did not work nor did the compartment doors lock and I'm sure the awnings and other things would not have functioned if we had tried. We had been sitting in a campground, plugged in, for 6 wks and our chassis batteries were low. We started the coach using the battery boost and now have a charger on the batteries. Freightliner says that none of those things should be hooked up through the chassis batteries but Winnebago says they are. The solution is to run the engine for 20 min. once a week, keep a trickle charge on the batteries while parked for a time or have Freightliner put a battery disconnect on the chassis batteries. I'm not sure what that might do to all of the electronics. Just thought someone out there might like to know. Pat & Bill

[Pat & Bill]

One day the monitor panel was out, the slides would not come in, the jacks did not work nor did the compartment doors lock and I'm sure the awnings and other things would not have functioned if we had tried. We had been sitting in a campground, plugged in, for 6 wks and our chassis batteries were low. We started the coach using the battery boost and now have a charger on the batteries. Freightliner says that none of those things should be hooked up through the chassis batteries but Winnebago says they are. The solution is to run the engine for 20 min. once a week, keep a trickle charge on the batteries while parked for a time or have Freightliner put a battery disconnect on the chassis batteries. I'm not sure what that might do to all of the electronics. Just thought someone out there might like to know. Pat & Bill

[CaptBill]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Freightliner says that none of those things should be hooked up through the chassis batteries but Winnebago says they are <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well that sure doesn't sound right to me, and you can find out quickly and easily for yourself. You should have a coach battery disconnect switch, probably activated by a momentary switch on your dash. That's the way my Horizon is, and I think the pushers are all that way. So, turn off coach batteries, then try to operate those items that you mentioned. The ones that work are on the chassis batteries. The ones that don't are on the (disconnected) coach batteries.

If you get a "Battery Minder", about $40 mail order, you can leave if connected to your chassis batteries, and it will maintain both of them to full charge without any risk of overcharging. If you mount it in your electrical bay, you could plug it into the engine block heater receptacle (if that's where they still put it), and run the wires over to the battery compartment.

Others may offer a better solution, but I know Battery Minder will safely do the job, for not a lot of money. Or, you could install an Echo Charger (about $125 mail order), and it will do the same thing, and would be a permament installation.

Too bad Winnebago doesn't incorporate a circuit, like the Echo Charge, that Country Coach uses, for automatically charging the chassis batteries from the house battery charger.

[PDB]

I had the same problem, and did two things to correct it: Made sure the "Battery Disconneect" swith at the front door was always in the ON position; I bought a BetteryMindr from Camping World for $44 and I leave it on my chassis batteries 24/7.
Problem fixed.

[hdvectra]

I find we have to put a charger on the chassis batteries every 3 weeks when hooked up to shore power. When we first got our Vectra we could only go a week without charging the chassis batteries but found out we had the radio power (surround sound) switch turned to engine batteries.

I just learned to charge the chassis batteries slow, 2 amps, for a couple of days, every 3 weeks. One time when we had the MH in storage for 3 weeks the batteries did not go down. When unoccupied and not hooked up to power the batteries will take months to lose their charge.

[Pat & Bill]

To Capt. Bill, Thanks for the info. We ordered a Battery Minder. No wonder we had not experienced this before our previous coach was a Country Coach. Pat & Bill