Merry Christmas......NOT!

[johnnywal]

Went out this morning to get the GC out of the garage to load up to head of for Christmas lunch, no response from it to the key fob...... I thought maybe the fob battery had gone flat so grabbed the spare.....still no response????

It is a MY14 Grand Cherokee Laredo with 60000 on the clock.

It was fine when I parked it a week ago and I had connected it to a smart charger to keep the battery fully charged.
I didn't check the stage of charge the charger was on, should have been on maintain, as it had been on all week.

Immediate thought was that the battery had totally died because when I checked the charge points in the engine bay circuit tester there was 0.

First problem I thought was how do I get the seat forward to get the battery out, so I reconnected the charger but it would not put in anything, so I switched it to supply mode to see if I could get some power to move the seat. All the dash came up so I switch the charger back to charge mode to try it again.

It started charging and quickly jumped up through the first couple of charge modes so I thought the battery must be OK and thought I would attempt to start it. I made a few different noises, wipers started going but no sign of a start.

I tried to turn it off but there was no reaction pressing the start button, it stayed on. The only way I could stop things was pushing the lock button on the fob. There were still some noises coming from around the fuel tank under the GC, presumably the pump pulsing??

The only way I could completely stop all things was disconnect the battery charger and I was back where I started with everything dead!
Any ideas as to what might be going on???? The GC has been faultless before this and is a terrific vehicle.

[08crd]

Can you get a set of jumper leads onto it?

[johnnywal]

I'll use our other car today and look at things again tomorrow and see what suggestions come through the forum.
I can't even get help from Jeep in Geelong as they closed their doors a few weeks ago!!!....great; not that I would want to, knowing what Jeep charge for anything

[Troutman]

All late model Jeeps do some weird shit and are almost impossible to diagnose without a battery that is in good condition mate.

[johnnywal]

Yes, it is the original battery and the GC will be 5 years old in April.
Not sure how long the batteries in the GC usually last; they are a deep cycle type I think.

[lujabe]

Originally Posted by johnnywal

Yes, it is the original battery and the GC will be 5 years old in April.
Not sure how long the batteries in the GC usually last; they are a deep cycle type I think.

5 years is a long lifespan for a modern battery/vehicle - and when they die they tend to give no warning at all.

[67HR]

My14, sounds like your battery has died mate.
Mines a 14 too (Jan build) 68k yesty. Touch wood battery is fine but they're at an age where they could fail.