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Car Forum / Fiat Cars / April 2007

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Battery key on Fiat Ducato

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dirk van lut - 22 Apr 2007 11:51 GMT
Dear all,

This is my first visit to this newsgroup and hope someone can help with the
following.

I've got a camper that's build on a Fiat Ducato MultiJet 120
The manual says to disconnect the negative pole of the battery when not
using the vehical for a longer time (>1 month) what can easely happen with a
camper in winter time.
The easiest to disconnect the battery is the use of a battery key.

However my camper dealer said that the new Ducato needs to have power all
time and that the battery should never be disconnect, something with all the
electronics nowdays being used.

What is it now? Can I turn off all the power or not? Anyone with experience
or knowlegde on the subject?

Thanks in advance for the help.

rgds

Dirk van Lut
Nick ///// - 22 Apr 2007 19:25 GMT
> Dear all,
>
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
>
> Dirk van Lut

An interesting question which I personally have not given much thought to.

My observations would be this.  Battery disconnection for several days
is often quite likely to happen when a vehicle is in the garage for
extended service. With any disconnection of an hour or more then systems
without non volatile storage will lose their settings.

I recently fitted a tow-bar to my Croma (2005) and had the battery
disconnected overnight.  I lost the clock and the electric window
anti-pinch settings.  The windows through a warning triangle on the dash
but this was cleared by me taking the windows through their 'reset cycle'.

Also many car dealer show rooms have vehicles in there for weeks and
sometime months on end.  In every dealer I've ever visited these
vehicles have tier batteries disconnected.

I personally would be tempted to do a trial battery disconnect for 24
hours and see what I have to reset etc...  Then do it for a week.  Then
a month.  If there are any issues then this should show them up.

To me, logically once a car is without power then all knowledge of time
is lost so why a day, week, month or year should make any difference  I
 don't know.

Suggest that if you are going to give the power disconnection for
varying periods a trial then do it when you know you have a few days of
recovery time should you have to visit your dealer.

Your only other option is to use a 'battery saver' charger.  These can
be mains or sun powered.

Nick /////
dirk van lut - 23 Apr 2007 18:29 GMT
>> Dear all,
>>
[quoted text clipped - 52 lines]
>
> Nick /////

Thanks Nick for the very useful input.
My logic is the same as your. It should not matter whether the battery is
disconnected for 1 hour, 1 day or 1 month.
I like the idea you suggested to try it out by disconnecting the neg. pole
for a day and see what needs to be reset. If it only the clock
than that's little to do. If it works I could install a battery key. If it
doen'st work I always call in the road help services of Fiat.

Apparently this is a very quite newsgroup. Or nobody has any experiences
with the subject.

See Nick and thanks again.

Dirk van Lut
Nick ///// - 23 Apr 2007 19:34 GMT
> Thanks Nick for the very useful input.
> My logic is the same as your. It should not matter whether the battery is
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
>
> Dirk van Lut

After going to bed last night I did think of one possible reason for
keeping the battery connected.  It all depends if you have a service
computer which has both mileage AND/OR days.  My Stilo Abarth had
mileage and days that counted up and down respectivly.  If the day
counter just counts lapsed 24 hour periods and does not work out days
based on date then if the battery were disconnected for a month then you
 would be a month late for your 12 month service which could invalidate
your warranty.

As a precuation while you experiment I would just note the dates you
disconnect and reconnect the battery and factor the off time into you
service schedule.

Nick /////
 
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