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My wife's 10 month old '22 GLC has issued a critical status warning for the starter battery twice in the past 10 months.
When it happened first my wife was out of the country for 6 weeks and had just parked the car in the garage without putting it in standby mode.
However the car just issued another warning. My wife is working from home so she does not drive it as much as she used to, but the car sees usage a couple of times per week. At the moment she is driving around 100mi/week.
Needing to drive the car around to recharge the starter battery sounds abnormal under these conditions... Or perhaps I don't have a good sense how much the constant cell phone connection drains the battery. Opinions?
Lastly, she is coming up on 12 months and her first scheduled A maintenance. The cost is not that high but with only 6k miles on the car this seems more like a nice to have. Thoughts?
My wife's 10 month old '22 GLC has issued a critical status warning for the starter battery twice in the past 10 months.
When it happened first my wife was out of the country for 6 weeks and had just parked the car in the garage without putting it in standby mode.
However the car just issued another warning. My wife is working from home so she does not drive it as much as she used to, but the car sees usage a couple of times per week. At the moment she is driving around 100mi/week.
Needing to drive the car around to recharge the starter battery sounds abnormal under these conditions... Or perhaps I don't have a good sense how much the constant cell phone connection drains the battery. Opinions?
Lastly, she is coming up on 12 months and her first scheduled A maintenance. The cost is not that high but with only 6k miles on the car this seems more like a nice to have. Thoughts?
I think the car is most likely not driven enough to keep the battery charged. Buy a trickle charger and have it on the battery when the car is parked and you will not have any
issues. (I do exactly that on your GMC Yukon, as it also does not get driven all that much).
In regards to the service, I would always take care of it regardless of miles. The oil should always be changed at the very least once a year, regardless of miles.
Personally, I change the oil every 5K on my wife’s GLC with full synthetic. With all the horror stories one hears about the engine failures on these 4 cyl. turbo engines, I rather change the oil sooner then what MB recommends, as it is cheap insurance.
Furthermore, you will always be able to provide all service records done on time in case you want to sell the vehicle.
Thanks, a trickle battery charger is probably beyond what she would be willing to deal with even if it only to disconnect it. I may just ask her to keep the car in standby mode.
Yes, I would also say it's not driven enough. The standby mode actually gives a good indication of how much the battery is charged. Below is for my C63S, but after fully charging the battery with my trickle charger it's got 21 weeks on standby. I've seen it go as low as 7 weeks and I also drive on average about a 100 miles a week. So that indicates the battery is only about 30% charged with that little driving. I haven't gotten the critical warning, but I periodically hook it up to a trickle charger and outside of the winter months I regularly go for 250+ mile canyon drives, so each of those pretty much fully charges the battery, but during the winter the car sees very little driving. I've gotten the critical battery warning while the car was in service a few times, so since then I always make sure the battery is fully charged before I take it in for service and that has done the trick. I also fully charge it before I go on vacation and then turn on the standby mode. 21 weeks is overkill as the longest I've been away was 10 weeks, but it ensures that I still have plenty of charge upon return.
My wife's 10 month old '22 GLC has issued a critical status warning for the starter battery twice in the past 10 months.
When it happened first my wife was out of the country for 6 weeks and had just parked the car in the garage without putting it in standby mode.
However the car just issued another warning. My wife is working from home so she does not drive it as much as she used to, but the car sees usage a couple of times per week. At the moment she is driving around 100mi/week.
Needing to drive the car around to recharge the starter battery sounds abnormal under these conditions... Or perhaps I don't have a good sense how much the constant cell phone connection drains the battery. Opinions?
Lastly, she is coming up on 12 months and her first scheduled A maintenance. The cost is not that high but with only 6k miles on the car this seems more like a nice to have. Thoughts?
I took delivery of Sep 2021 built SUV in March last year and it was at a detailer for a month, so I've practically owned it for about 10 month as well.
Like your wife, I don't drive often and in fact much less than she does every week. Probably 6-20mi a week and total mileage so far is less than 2.5k, but had the first service done a couple weeks ago because I'm going away soon.
Every time my car is at a detailer for a couple days, I get that battery critical notification. I checked the battery charge level by accessing workshop menu recently and it was 12.1V. FYI - my battery was fully charged at the dealership about a month ago.
I'm also curious to know how fast these starter batteries drain. I should probably get a CTEK charger since I don't drive much, but for now I'm getting my battery's health checked at a battery shop today.
Yes, I would also say it's not driven enough. The standby mode actually gives a good indication of how much the battery is charged. Below is for my C63S, but after fully charging the battery with my trickle charger it's got 21 weeks on standby. I've seen it go as low as 7 weeks and I also drive on average about a 100 miles a week. So that indicates the battery is only about 30% charged with that little driving. I haven't gotten the critical warning, but I periodically hook it up to a trickle charger and outside of the winter months I regularly go for 250+ mile canyon drives, so each of those pretty much fully charges the battery, but during the winter the car sees very little driving. I've gotten the critical battery warning while the car was in service a few times, so since then I always make sure the battery is fully charged before I take it in for service and that has done the trick. I also fully charge it before I go on vacation and then turn on the standby mode. 21 weeks is overkill as the longest I've been away was 10 weeks, but it ensures that I still have plenty of charge upon return.
I was gonna say my car didn't have the standby mode and surprise surprise I just checked and it was there! I should activate the standby mode after every time.
I was gonna say my car didn't have the standby mode and surprise surprise I just checked and it was there! I should activate the standby mode after every time.
Just keep in mind that it turns off all consumers, specifically the alarm and all the online services. So if you park outside then you may not wanna do that.
Just keep in mind that it turns off all consumers, specifically the alarm and all the online services. So if you park outside then you may not wanna do that.
Yup. I got the message on screen that anti-theft monitoring would be switched off. It also displayed expected battery idle time: 25 weeks. I wonder if the standby mode is on while on route from Germany.
And I just went to a battery shop and they couldn't hook up the device without taking out the cover. Even then there was battery leak, so they had to disconnect the battery... Is this normal with GLC that you actually have to take the cover off the battery compartment?
I don't know the cause of the battery leak... the door was locked but anti-theft was still on. They said the battery was fully charged but I don't trust that because when I access the workshop menu, it shows 12.3V *SMH*
Yup. I got the message on screen that anti-theft monitoring would be switched off. It also displayed expected battery idle time: 25 weeks. I wonder if the standby mode is on while on route from Germany.
I highly doubt the standby mode is on during transport, as they get loaded by port personnel that loads many different makes and models. They are not going into the system and turn on standby mode after loading the car. As soon as you turn on the ignition, the standby mode is automatically deactivated, so they would have to remember to activate it.
But the car is likely in a transport mode and the VPC will then take it out of that mode. They obviously don't want car alarms to go off all over the place while the cars are on a vessel, so this stuff is all disabled for transport. Just like they put shipping blocks into the springs so the cars don't bounce into each other when the sea gets rough.
Most of the battery drain during normal use comes from the always on Mercedes me data connection, so that you can check the status of the car in the app, get alerts, remote start/lock/unlock etc. That stuff is also not active until the car arrives at the VPC.
Originally Posted by pussgalore
And I just went to a battery shop and they couldn't hook up the device without taking out the cover. Even then there was battery leak, so they had to disconnect the battery... Is this normal with GLC that you actually have to take the cover off the battery compartment?
I don't know the cause of the battery leak... the door was locked but anti-theft was still on. They said the battery was fully charged but I don't trust that because when I access the workshop menu, it shows 12.3V *SMH*
To the above point there's a constant battery draw from the telematics and online services, so yes, if they need to test the battery it would have to be disconnected first.
My wife's 10 month old '22 GLC has issued a critical status warning for the starter battery twice in the past 10 months.
When it happened first my wife was out of the country for 6 weeks and had just parked the car in the garage without putting it in standby mode.
However the car just issued another warning. My wife is working from home so she does not drive it as much as she used to, but the car sees usage a couple of times per week. At the moment she is driving around 100mi/week.
Needing to drive the car around to recharge the starter battery sounds abnormal under these conditions... Or perhaps I don't have a good sense how much the constant cell phone connection drains the battery. Opinions?
Lastly, she is coming up on 12 months and her first scheduled A maintenance. The cost is not that high but with only 6k miles on the car this seems more like a nice to have. Thoughts?
I just went through the same issue with my GLE. I was in Florida for 8 weeks driving my GLC while my GLE sat in the garage. Got a warning from my app regarding my battery. Took it for several short drives however the warning would reappear. Yesterday I went on the Garden State Parkway for a significantly longer drive and the warning did not come back. You will need to take your car on the highway for at least an hour to recharge your battery.
02-20-2023, 09:45 PM
