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Start/Stop Not Ready - Battery Charging?

Gee-pah

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Indeed there are many aspects of ESS, at least on the 3.6L JL, that make less than a well received system. Many people don't like by default that their engines will shut off at traffic stops. Then there's wear and tear on the components, and mentally getting use to the idea that an engine that turns off in the middle of traffic doesn't mean doom and gloom.

To some extent there is tradeoff in these systems between simplicity and reliability. And sometimes the added complexity, whose intention was to add reliability, designed wrong, only adds complexity, worse, reduces reliability as well.

A fair number of vehicle ESS systems run on one battery. Their thresholds for how long an ESS event lasts, which is based on monitoring battery voltage during the ESS event, must be more stringent than most 2 battery systems because that one battery has to be left with enough power to crank the engine.

Perhaps Wrangler engineers figured that with all the aftermarket appliances owners have, implementing a one battery ESS system might result in ESS events lasting only seconds before cranking the engine was necessary, not achieving the gas savings that EPS CAFE standards mandate and that ESS was created for in the first place.

Studies have shown that mileage gains begin at about 7 seconds of engine off time.

So a two battery system was chosen, but IMHO, that second battery should have been more substantial, particularly because in the 2018 design, that battery was mission critical to get the vehicle cold cranked. Worse, since the two batteries are connected in parallel most of the time, particularly while the vehicle is parked and no alternator is operating, either battery can be a parasite to the other bringing them both down. A more robust factory system might have broken the parallel connection while parked, if the voltage of one battery were going down far more than the other battery's was going up.

But all design decisions have costs passed in part on to the buyer, and bean counters can put pressure on engineers to design it less expensively.

On top of this also looms the somewhat unspoken truth that limitations in design, almost unique to the Wrangler, come in the form of 3rd party solutions (Genesis) that other vehicles don't as much enjoy.
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mppsu2003

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Finally getting this fixed at the dealer tomorrow after several reschedules.

There shouldn't be any issues with the warranty right? Car is 15 months old, about 16k miles so well within range. I'm expecting I shouldn't have any out of pocket costs....
 

Sean L

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Finally getting this fixed at the dealer tomorrow after several reschedules.

There shouldn't be any issues with the warranty right? Car is 15 months old, about 16k miles so well within range. I'm expecting I shouldn't have any out of pocket costs....
I had my batteries replaced under the warranty, you should be good.
 

OldGuyNewJeep

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This dual battery design sucks. Mine is going in for TSB 18-092-19, tomorrow. I told them to also test the batteries because every morning they are at 11.9v (per my multimeter). I’ve taken to plugging in my tender every 3 days and it’s getting old. I hope I come home with new batteries.

I’m adding an N1/N2 jumper and disconnecting the stupid ESS battery this weekend.
 

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Sean L

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This dual battery design sucks. Mine is going in for TSB 18-092-19, tomorrow. I told them to also test the batteries because every morning they are at 11.9v (per my multimeter). I’ve taken to plugging in my tender every 3 days and it’s getting old. I hope I come home with new batteries.

I’m adding an N1/N2 jumper and disconnecting the stupid ESS battery this weekend.
The cold weather seems to kill the small battery pretty quickly. :asshat:
Every winter I spend pretty much the whole time in battery protection mode.
 

WranglerMan

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I had my ESS battery and main battery replaced and went with a dual system by Genesis, my battery voltages after parking from a good drive meter at 12.85-12.9 and after it’s parked all night they drop to 12.65, the drop is caused by the solenoid that draws power to connect the two batteries but once it gets to 12.7 they disconnect and no additional drop in voltsge and they are both identical full size 64 AH batteries.

I think the biggest issues with the factory setup is the two batteries are dissimilar and charge differently, the dual system I went to was pretty pricy considering but 1/2 the cost was the batteries and I chose pretty high end AGM batteries.

There are work arounds with the stock system and by all means if under warranty have the dealer fix it with new ones and use some of the hacks to deal with issues that come up.

I don’t use ESS and have it disabled using a SSS module but have tested it and it still works with my dual system but I am limited to a (6) cycle limit and then the ignition has to be cycled and it starts over but since I truly dislike ESS it’s a non issue for me and I have a full size spare identical battery that I can use to jump start myself if needed and it’s built in.

I sure you are all aware of this but if the ESS battery is bad or going bad it will drag the main battery down with it and that seems to be the case a lot, I know several here that have replaced the ESS battery by going in thru the bottom by pulling a fender flare or going in thru the top after taking out the PDC but I just never liked that idea regardless of how easy it was described to do so I went a different route and have the extra power of that second battery to run my aux equipment plus has a boost if needed.
 

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This dual battery design sucks. Mine is going in for TSB 18-092-19, tomorrow. I told them to also test the batteries because every morning they are at 11.9v (per my multimeter). I’ve taken to plugging in my tender every 3 days and it’s getting old. I hope I come home with new batteries.

I’m adding an N1/N2 jumper and disconnecting the stupid ESS battery this weekend.
Allow me sir to also recommend you taking steps so ESS can't engage.

We don't want that main battery taxed too long in an ESS event, the vehicle cancelling the event because the battery has run low (thinking it's the ESS battery it is reading that's low) and then attempting to re-crank the vehicle to get the alternator back in business charging the battery, only to find that the battery it uses to crank lacks the power to do so....

...i.e. the whole reasons for a two battery ESS system in the first place

: - )
 

OldGuyNewJeep

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Allow me sir to also recommend you taking steps so ESS can't engage.

We don't want that main battery taxed too long in an ESS event, the vehicle cancelling the event because the battery has run low (thinking it's the ESS battery it is reading that's low) and then attempting to re-crank the vehicle to get the alternator back in business charging the battery, only to find that the battery it uses to crank lacks the power to do so....

...i.e. the whole reasons for a two battery ESS system in the first place

: - )
Yeah, I’ve had a Tazer since June 2018; I have never used ESS. (I also own a Smart Stop Start which is a fantastic little unit. I got it back when Tazer was having growing pains, but have since gone back to Tazer.)
 

MauiSteve

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My 21 JLR stick 3.6 arrived without ESS working. There are no warning lights or messages. It’s as if it’s not there. I don’t intend to do anything about it. I figure this is a case of it not being broken. It has less than 500 miles on it.
 

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WranglerMan

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My 21 JLR stick 3.6 arrived without ESS working. There are no warning lights or messages. It’s as if it’s not there. I don’t intend to do anything about it. I figure this is a case of it not being broken. It has less than 500 miles on it.
As long as you don’t have any messages in the ESS EVIC display and battery voltages are good as in the “ smart charging “ system works as designed then I would not have it addressed either but lots here have had issues where it did not work and then they have been left stranded due to a dead battery because if the ESS battery fails it will eventually pull the main down even if the ESS system is not used.
 
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mppsu2003

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Ugggh the car spent 8 hours at the dealership on Friday and they replaced the battery censor. The ESS worked for 2 days and now I got the battery charging message again, followed by a service start/stop message. Just like last time the service message went away after a restart but the battery charging message remains.

pretty annoyed by this, all for a feature I don’t even like using.
 

WranglerMan

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Ugggh the car spent 8 hours at the dealership on Friday and they replaced the battery censor. The ESS worked for 2 days and now I got the battery charging message again, followed by a service start/stop message. Just like last time the service message went away after a restart but the battery charging message remains.

pretty annoyed by this, all for a feature I don’t even like using.
You might try putting your JL on a trickle charger for a day or two, lots here including me use smart chargers.

I have no scientific data to back this up but IMHO I believe the dissimilar batteries have a lot to do with the problems owners are having and also batteries do go bad and since they are connected when one goes bad it pulls the other one down, I personally went with a different system after my warranty ran out.....
 

MauiSteve

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When I am out of warranty I think I’m going for the Genesis dual battery system. Pricey but it looks very good.
 

DaltonGang

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Ugggh the car spent 8 hours at the dealership on Friday and they replaced the battery censor. The ESS worked for 2 days and now I got the battery charging message again, followed by a service start/stop message. Just like last time the service message went away after a restart but the battery charging message remains.

pretty annoyed by this, all for a feature I don’t even like using.

I had the exact same issues. The dealership changed out the "Intelligent Battery Sensor". It still acted up, until I did a long Trickle charge, when I was out of town, for a week.
Now the ESS is working well, and is just as annoying as when the Jeep was new. No new batteries were needed, like most here seem to think are needed.
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