I had the Special programmes off message come up on the display a few times this week. Was told this can be a sign of the battery getting tired.

Car is running fine etc with no other warnings.

I checked the battery voltage today before starting it. It was 12.2v. Is that low?

Mine goes down to about 12 volts overnight. I know cos I’ve programmed my dash cam to turn off if 11.9 volts reached and most days it stays on overnight.

Car still starts fine at this voltage. Robin
2008 Range Rover Sport TDV8
Gone:
Jaguar S-Type V8 4.2 Sport
MGZTT 190 2.5

If it's 12.2V before you unlock it i.e. fully asleep overnight, then it's about 60% charged. Fully charged is about 12.7V. Bear in mind that unlocking the vehicle starts to wake things up so the voltage across the terminals will be slightly lower. Checking via a towing plug allows you to get a proper at-rest figure. Ideally you would leave it 24 hours after any running to allow surface charge to dissipate and thus get a true reading. 2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

Special programmes unavailable can be a sign of a brake light or brake switch failing. Special programmes use HDC and this is hard wired in to the brakes. Any brake bulb or switch failures will usually cause an HDC failure and thus the error message. 2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

I checked mine this morning, it hasn’t been started this week yet, no interior lights etc come on when opening, and it read 12.72v from + terminal and earth point on car, so that doesn’t seem bad at all by comparison, perhaps just slightly high?  John

RRS MY12 SDV6 HSE. Sumatra Black/Ebony & Walnut + Dynamic Pack, + Cold Climate Pack + Memory Pack, Digital TV/DVD, Premium Leather, Cornering Lights, Cooler/Fridge Box, & most Options.

Last edited by Johnski on Thu Oct 26 2017 7:16pm. Edited 1 time in total

Fully charged is pretty good, yes!  2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

Jampot has put the kiss of death on my RRS!

Battery 11.7 volts the other morning. Got it started and went for a half hour run to Tesco, and back. All OK apart from a few messages about auto hand brake not working - which went away.

This morning 11.4 volts. Got it started and went around the block. Had Adaptive Lights warning, Transmission Fault, (F in display and no manual override or Sport mode), Special Programmes off. Got back, switched it off. Now it wont start and so is on charge. But looks like a new battery is the next step... Robin
2008 Range Rover Sport TDV8
Gone:
Jaguar S-Type V8 4.2 Sport
MGZTT 190 2.5

New battery from Halfords. 5 mins to fit, and all’s well again  Robin
2008 Range Rover Sport TDV8
Gone:
Jaguar S-Type V8 4.2 Sport
MGZTT 190 2.5

Glad you sorted it.... What battery did you go for?

I recharged my battery, and replaced the brake switch plus bulbs just as a matter of caution. I have been fine since with no problems.

I went for the Yuasa 5 Year Guarantee HSB019 Silver 12V Car Battery. There's a bit of a deal on with Black Friday coming up and 5 years guarantee seemed about right to me.

Also noted that it had slightly better "StartUp Power" at 900Amps than the others they had for sale and also the "AH Value" is 100 rather than 95 for their lifetime guarantee one.

I did consider the AGM option as, even though I don't have stop/start, I do tend to do quite a few short journeys but, as I have a trickle charger, decided a might as well use that ever so often to keep the battery healthy.

No issues fitting it in - some reports say that some dimensions can be a problem but not with this battery Its been on the trickle charger since I fitted it and is now showing 13.2 volts, and still charging. Fingers crossed that all issues are sorted now and I'm set for winter.  Robin
2008 Range Rover Sport TDV8
Gone:
Jaguar S-Type V8 4.2 Sport
MGZTT 190 2.5

Oh dear

Spoke too soon. 16 mile round trip yesterday using my brand new fully charged battery; led to a Christmas tree of lights on the dashboard, all sorts of warnings for things not available and then as I turned into my drive, all display went off. Stopped the engine, tried to start it and ... nothing!

Green Flag called around this morning, tested the charge and found that there wasn't one. Bigger Green Flag truck turned up an hour or so later, and the car is now with my local indie. They're guessing the alternator has given up the ghost. Will let me know tomorrow.

No courtesy car available at short notice so I'm grounded  Robin
2008 Range Rover Sport TDV8
Gone:
Jaguar S-Type V8 4.2 Sport
MGZTT 190 2.5

Just a thought. If I have to have a new alternator, is there anything else I should be thinking of doing during this work? Robin
2008 Range Rover Sport TDV8
Gone:
Jaguar S-Type V8 4.2 Sport
MGZTT 190 2.5

Just on a side note, when exploring the IID tool i noticed you could update the battery settings. was this done when you replaced the battery. unsure if the EMS would prevent a charge if it thinks the dead battery is still connected?

Oooh. Wasn't aware of that, thanks.

Thinking about it this wouldn't explain the loss of charge in the original battery so the underlying fault may well still be with the alternator. Anyway, hopefully my indie will know what to do. Thanks for the thought though. Robin
2008 Range Rover Sport TDV8
Gone:
Jaguar S-Type V8 4.2 Sport
MGZTT 190 2.5

So, an update in case anyone is interested.
New alternator fitted and the original battery is back in the car. Left it overnight last night on my trickle charger just to get it back to optimum charge and I will now monitor it over the next few days to check that that battery is OK.

As an aside, one problem that did occur was that the tailgate somehow got locked but not fully closed (I have the soft close facility). And the tailgate button refused to release it. As the access to the locking mechanism requires the tailgate to be open, we seemed to be in an impasse. An electronic solution was first ruled out; no blown fuses powering the tailgate switch. Fortunately my local indie doesn't give up that easily. They were first looking at cutting panels to get at the lock - that seems to be the official way to resolve this - but they found that by going in via the load space, and under the load space hatch, forcing out the carpet by the rear sill, and popping out a few trim fixings they were able to get to the lock and discovered it had frozen halfway through its close mechanism. 2 hours labour and some ingenious perseverance later and the issue was fixed.  Robin
2008 Range Rover Sport TDV8
Gone:
Jaguar S-Type V8 4.2 Sport
MGZTT 190 2.5