dual batteries

[mottati]

My wife's 07 yukon xl had it's battery go dead after waiting for my son from his basketball practice recently. She was sitting in the truck with our daughter watching the rear seat dvd for about 30 minutes. On first attempt, slow cranking followed by clicking. Called roadside assistance, guy said "we've been seeing a lot of these 07's with dead batteries" but who knows if that is acurate. I see the oe battery has only 615cca, seems pretty minimal for a truck with so much equipment/technology on it. My 6 year old bmw's oe battery had 850cca (and it's battery lasted 6 years).

 

we did bring the truck in shortly after, dealer said all is fine in the charging system and if it recurs we may want to buy a larger capacity battery! Truck is 2.5 mos old, about 2500 miles.

 

So my question, i see there is an additional battery tray in the drivers front corner of the engine compartment. Is a dual battery an option on any of the truck models, like a diesel, so i could go buy additional cables and a clamp at my dealer, to mount a second battery in series.

thanks,

Mike

[whmayhew]

Yes you can go th a dealer and buy the right cables.

[yukon4wd]

My wife's 07 yukon xl had it's battery go dead after waiting for my son from his basketball practice recently. She was sitting in the truck with our daughter watching the rear seat dvd for about 30 minutes. On first attempt, slow cranking followed by clicking. Called roadside assistance, guy said "we've been seeing a lot of these 07's with dead batteries" but who knows if that is acurate. I see the oe battery has only 615cca, seems pretty minimal for a truck with so much equipment/technology on it. My 6 year old bmw's oe battery had 850cca (and it's battery lasted 6 years).

 

we did bring the truck in shortly after, dealer said all is fine in the charging system and if it recurs we may want to buy a larger capacity battery! Truck is 2.5 mos old, about 2500 miles.

 

So my question, i see there is an additional battery tray in the drivers front corner of the engine compartment. Is a dual battery an option on any of the truck models, like a diesel, so i could go buy additional cables and a clamp at my dealer, to mount a second battery in series.

thanks,

Mike

 

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My truck is a bit older, but same scenario we were at a skeet shoot, and it started to rain, so we decided to be wimps and sit and watch movies instead of getting wet. One move (I guess 85 minutes), and the battery was totally dead, nothing. Real winter came along, and after sitting 3 days in minus 30, it died again. I am sort of deciding between a bigger battery, or two. I would preffer two to have the redundancy, but what is better?

 

PS I don't think its the DVD that killed it, but that you need to keep the ignition on to watch movies, which is silly. Is there a simple way to watch a movie with the ignition key out? What happened to the days when you had an ACC. position?

[pm26]

It is better to have two batteries, but it complicates things. If I am not mistaken, many RVs have an emergency start circuit, where you can use a separate coach battery for starting in an emergency. Also, many boats have dual batteries with a battery switch, which enables you to isolate one battery entirely. I do not think any passenger cars and trucks have a system like this. Most diesel pickups have twin batteries connected in parallel to maintain the same voltage at twice the available cranking capacity. Both batteries are being recharged by the alternator simultaneously. Some diesel pickups also have twin optional alternators (I think Ford offers that option)

 

I am surprised that a DVD player would draw enough current to drain a fully charged battery in 30 minutes. Must be a crappy battery, or the GM alternator charging cutout system is partially responsible for this. I would recommend staying with the existing single battery system, but buying the largest capacity battery you can fit in the tray. Iff you can buy a larger battery tray, you can fit a physically larger battery in it. I have one like that in my Mercedes 300SD (diesel).

[davegee]

I added an additional battery in RH rear area by firewall (used in Diesels) with a GM battery tray....however I opted to make my own cables and ran positive cable in to red "power center' by alternator and negative to a good ground. My reason was to add extra battery time for camping etc and also to power added accessories ( I added a fuse "block" and grounding setup as well as a sealed box on firewall to house 5 relays for accessories) It works great and I don't fear loosing battery power any more....also I used an 850 CCA battery which adds to capacity.