Battery dies overnight

[OR VietVet]

Hell, you can just jump it and then, as long as alternator is working properly, it will fully charge the battery and should show it is charging it on the gauge, as long as you drive it long enough. Trip to store and back is not long enough. I always have recommended an hour trip to cover all charging bases. Now, to address the original reason it would not start. You have different systems/modules that are on Keep Alive Memory and have a constant draw while the vehicle is shut down. Leaving it for two weeks allowed those systems to drain enough that the starter needed more power to crank over than what was left in that battery. The battery still had enough for the Keep Alive Memory and that is why the lights came on....etc. But, batteries don't like being drained like that. Hopefully no damage but who knows. From now on, like on a motorcycle, whenever a vehicle sits for a long enough period of time, you should have a trickle charger that is designed to shut off and monitor system when battery is fully charged and turns on when battery gets low enough.

 

[suterusu]

I believe there was a TSB about OTA updates causing this issue and the truck needing an update. Dealer should be able to help.

 

[WalleyeMikeIII]

I believe there was a TSB about OTA updates causing this issue and the truck needing an update. Dealer should be able to help.

^^^ This was going to be my next suggestion.

 

[ChemEng]

Sorry, had a baby two weeks ago and lost track of the thread.

Dealer couldn’t find anything wrong. They said they tested the battery and it was “good”. They also kept it for the weekend and the battery didn’t die, so they called it good and gave it back to me. They said there were no pending updates.

I haven’t had any problems since except my airbag light came on briefly driving down the highway yesterday (cruise set to 75).

 

[ChemEng]

I think you just need to put it on the charger longer. Thirty minutes is probably way too short.

Does your charger indicate when the battery is fully charged? Does it go into float mode once charged?

I had to charge for about 6 hours, but I have a crappy charger.

 

[shock]

I had to charge for about 6 hours, but I have a crappy charger.

I was replying to the hi-jacked portion of the thread, not the original post. Sorry about any confusion.

 

[Stbentoak]

We have found thru experience that if you are going to let these or any electronic/internet connected/communicating, vehicles sit for more than say 2-4 weeks, they really must be on a maintainer. There is just too much parasitic stuff going on. Not saying they can't go 6 months, but we have learned the hard way they can and do discharge completely over extended periods.
Unless driven daily/weekly, they go on fast connect Ctek AGM maintainers. Never an issue after that....

 

[TxSam]

Thanks for all the responses. Here's what has transpired the last few days. I did end up putting the charger on trickle (2A) for about 24 hours. Battery seemed fully charged after 24 hrs with no current draw on the battery charger. We drove the Yukon yesterday, put about a 110+ miles on it with no problems. Several starts in the span of 6 hours. Got home last night, installed my GM floors mats which involved having the doors open and running the second row and back row electric seats several times. I knew there would be battery draw with all that but figured it wouldn't 'normally' affect a good battery. Went out this morning, no start, battery not completely dead, but not enough to kick over the motor, this is the 3.0 diesel so it may need a little oomph because of the high compression.

Anyway, I have read about the possible OTA battery related issues. One suggestion was to remove the ground cable from the battery to let some of the electronics reset in case there was something hung up. So, I decided to do that this morning and redo the battery charging. One thing I noticed is that the negative battery cable seemed a little on the loose side, not exactly loose, but the nut required little to no torque to loosen. The post didn't look as clean as it could be, so I went ahead and cleaned it and reinstalled the cable and torqued it more appropriately. Now have the battery charger on it and we'll see what happens.

One thing I noticed was that the initial current draw on the charger was much less this time than it was before. Also was thinking if the vehicle sat for any length of time, like in the Midlothian holding lot, it may have been a little ******* the battery (I'm sure it was disconnected). That made me wonder if when they reconnected the battery at that point, they didn't torque it correctly and, also, if it sat without the cable connected, it may have given the lead post some opportunity to build-up a small amount of corrosion.

I'll report back on how things work out from here. Obviously if these latest efforts don't result in a positive result we'll be headed to the dealer.

 

[WalleyeMikeIII]

Your loose terminal probably is the issue...

 

[TxSam]

Just to follow-up - I do believe the slightly loose negative terminal was the likely culprit. After cleaning and re-installing and a 24 hr recharge, the Yukon seems fine. Even seems to be 'turning over' faster when starting. I think it may have been an issue all along, but we had no way of knowing until it didn't want to turn-over. Seems hard to believe after 5 months and 10k miles though.

Anyway, I would suggest to other owners who may have had a Yukon or Tahoe that sat waiting a chip(s) to double-check the negatively battery terminal for cleanliness and proper torque.