[OnlyAdamTheDad]

2018 Pac Touring L - Original owner with just under 40,000 miles on it.

Recently (last 3 months) I've had the vibration with the slow left turn. I saw some posts from people who said when they replaced their battery the problem went away. I'll note that the issue was there with our new All Seasons as well as the new Winter set I put on.

Today I went up to the battery store to have the battery tested and my intention was to just replace it. 40,000 miles and thought it might be due.

The guy threw the computer on it and overwhelmingly said it looked great. He threw some numbers at me but said everything looked awesome.

Here's the kick to the nuts. As I was pulling out of their parking lot, the stop start engaged waiting for traffic to pass. And as is typical, it turned off as I was releasing the brake to pull out so it did that annoying stutter. It happens to me a lot because my timing is always off. But this time, the windshield wipers cycled ONE TIME!!

Now I have the stop start service notification on.

I'm not prepared to take it in or even start doing my own diagnosis on it right now because I'm not convinced that after a few drives the alert will go away. And I'm also not that mad that the stop start isn't on. I never really cared for that feature.

Anyone else experience something like this? Am I missing something big that I should be considering? I hope to keep this van another few years and don't want to do any collateral damage.

Side note that the engine compartment had coolant splashed around. It appears it came out of the fill cap area. Levels were still good.

 

[fotomoto]

Today I went up to the battery store to have the battery tested

What specifically did they do? Was it removed from the vehicle?

 

[OnlyAdamTheDad]

What specifically did they do? Was it removed from the vehicle?

Only pulled the cover off. No removal. Hooked the handheld computer up to the positive and negative terminals. Nothing else.

 

[Jeremy M.]

Only pulled the cover off. No removal. Hooked the handheld computer up to the positive and negative terminals. Nothing else.

The batteries need to be disconnected from each other then separately load tested. Usually the AUX battery goes bad and drags down the main battery with it.

 

[OnlyAdamTheDad]

Is that AUX the one that usually goes bad for the stop start?

 

[peterweb]

Yes. The Aux battery is the one that supplies the power for all the accessories during a stop/start sequence. But your indication of the wipers cycling can also indicate that your main battery is getting bad. Possibly caused by a failing aux battery. This is the reason you always need to at least check both batteries at the first sign of any electrical issue.

 

[freddief73]

2018 Pac Touring L - Original owner with just under 40,000 miles on it.

Recently (last 3 months) I've had the vibration with the slow left turn. I saw some posts from people who said when they replaced their battery the problem went away. I'll note that the issue was there with our new All Seasons as well as the new Winter set I put on.

Today I went up to the battery store to have the battery tested and my intention was to just replace it. 40,000 miles and thought it might be due.

The guy threw the computer on it and overwhelmingly said it looked great. He threw some numbers at me but said everything looked awesome.

Here's the kick to the nuts. As I was pulling out of their parking lot, the stop start engaged waiting for traffic to pass. And as is typical, it turned off as I was releasing the brake to pull out so it did that annoying stutter. It happens to me a lot because my timing is always off. But this time, the windshield wipers cycled ONE TIME!!

Now I have the stop start service notification on.

I'm not prepared to take it in or even start doing my own diagnosis on it right now because I'm not convinced that after a few drives the alert will go away. And I'm also not that mad that the stop start isn't on. I never really cared for that feature.

Anyone else experience something like this? Am I missing something big that I should be considering? I hope to keep this van another few years and don't want to do any collateral damage.

Side note that the engine compartment had coolant splashed around. It appears it came out of the fill cap area. Levels were still good.

The two batteries are connected to together most of the time. There two situations when they are electrically separated. One is during a stop/start event when van shuts the engine off during which all the accessories are running of the aux battery. The other is for a split second every time you start the engine when the van purposefully electrically separates the two batteries to test the voltage of the aux battery. The stop/start warning comes on because the computer detected a low state of charge on the aux battery when it last ran this test. The catch is that this doesn't necessarily mean the aux battery is bad. If the main battery is bad it will drain the aux battery, which could cause the aux battey to have low voltage when the computer runs it's test. All of the computers on the van are only connected to the aux battery (just like during a stop/start event) for that split second when the test is being performed. If the aux battery voltage is lower than the computers' operating range during that test they are effectively power cycled (turned off/turned back on) which can cause erroneous warnings/messages to be displayed or other odd anomalies to be observed (like the wipers cycling once).

As previously mentioned, the two batteries must be electrically separated when performing any testing. If this isn't done the tester simply sees the two batteries as one large battery which skews the test result to make it seem better than it really is. It would be like if you were testing an 850CCA battery with an automated tester that applies a test load that is determined by the CCA rating entered by the operator (lower CCA rating = lower load test amperage and vice versa). If the operator enters 650CCA, the test load applied to the 850CCA battery would be lower than it should be which will yield outstanding (but incorrect) test results. That's basically what happened when the guy at the battery store tested your batteries.

Same goes when charging the batteries. Under normal circumstances, when both batteries are healthy they don't need to be separated to charge them. They again will be charged as if they are one large battery. BUT if one of the batteries is bad it won't take a charge and it will hinder the ability of the healthy battery to be charged because the bad battery consumes the small current the charger provides.

Think of one of the two batteries failing like a bad cell in one battery. If you have a good understanding of DC electrical systems and batteries this will make sense. If you don't, what I just explained is going to sound like gibberish.

Keep an eye on that coolant. Some other members on here have had a cracked coolant reservoirs that needed to be replaced. It's not a huge widespread issue, but it has happened before. If I were you, I would thoroughly rinse/clean the reservoir off. After it dries, any leaks will be more noticeable as they occur.

 

[PacificaMinivanFan]

Same goes when charging the batteries. Under normal circumstances, when both batteries are healthy they don't need to be separated to charge them. They again will be charged as if they are one large battery. BUT if one of the batteries is bad it won't take a charge and it will hinder the ability of the healthy battery to be charged because the bad battery consumes the small current the charger provides.

Very interesting. Thank you. I recently bought a battery tender because we haven't been driving our Pacifica much. Connected it to just the main battery and did not disconnect the auxillary battery. It took a while to fully charge, so I assume it was charging both batteries. Before throwing the tender on, the Stop-Start system rarely worked. Now it works all the time as advertised.

 

[OnlyAdamTheDad]

Update. Last night I disconnected both batteries. I was going to throw them on a charger but I wanted to see what that would do. It was getting late so I only disconnected them for about 15 to 20 min and then reconnected. It's cold here and the Stop/Start wont engage unless the engine is warmed up so I decided to wait until today to see if anything changed. When I started the car I turned SS off and warmed up with a drive. Got home and turned it back on and then sat until it turned the engine off. When it turned off it almost immediately started back up except the headlights and the rest of the electronics shut off until the engine started back up at which point all power came back. The funny glitch was instead of the windshield wipers cycling, the passenger window rolled down. The @! turned back on. It was off up until that point.

If I think of the flow of power, I have to believe it is the Aux battery. Even though on regular amps its showing 12, it must not have what it needs as soon as you draw on it causing the main battery to kick back on.

I'm planning on taking to the battery place again. He only tested one battery and he wasn't overly sure of himself. Going back and having done the stuff I've done, I know now where the two batteries are at and the posts. I'm not confident he connected to the right places with his test that came up flawless and this time I can have them test BOTH batteries.

 

[peterweb]

These symptoms sound like the main battery is bad. Having multiple strange electrical issues and indications is common to main battery problems.

 

[fotomoto]

He only tested one battery and he wasn't overly sure of himself.

The battery(s) need to be removed and load tested. A basic voltage reading is (nearly) meaningless for troubleshooting. Most auto parts stores will test for free but it could take a few hours (charge it up first).

 

[OnlyAdamTheDad]

After I drove the kids to school this morning I took the van back to the battery store to have Both tested. He tested both, but to me still seemed a bit shaky with the computer so after he said "Both look great!" I went to the auto parts store for a second opinion. They had me do more with testing on the main battery like rpms/start/lights on/off etc.

He gave me the printout for both batteries and said both looked great. :/

I haven't had time to do any other research today.

I'll keep updating as I progress or fail.

 

[ccovert74]

I have a 18 touring L with 35k miles no issues so far from day one with the batteries but every time I read one of these stories I cringe if it’s in my future. From dealer not having aux batteries to all of the gremlins

 

[SciTchr]

I have a 18 touring L with 35k miles no issues so far from day one with the batteries but every time I read one of these stories I cringe if it’s in my future. From dealer not having aux batteries to all of the gremlins

The benefit of reading the stories about battery issues is that you might not panic if you have an issue with the van not starting and there are unusual display messages. No symbol showed up to tell me my 4 month old replacement battery was dead, but I knew to ignore display messages since I'd read the forum. It was jumpstarted and driven to the dealer who replaced the battery.

Most people go to a forum when they have a problem, so that's mostly what you will see.

Glad your van is doing fine.