Yeti sometimes makes sad bong when left overnight

[notyeti]

I need some help with diagnosing a warning bong.  

 

I have noticed recently that sometimes before I take yeti for its first run of the day, that it is bonging to itself as I approach the car.  Starts fine, bong goes when I drive off.   It never bongs twice on the same day.  It loves attention, apparently.

 

My searches of the internet made me think this was some kind of low temperature warning. But now I don't think this is the case.   Yesterday evening, having not driven it for a week it was bonging away, and wouldn't start. Lights and all were quite bright, but the starter motor just clicked, and random scarily expensive warnings displayed.  I plugged it into a charger all night, and it  started, but left the ESP and ABS warnings on. They disappeared after less than a minute.  Reading the manual, this is expected behaviour after a battery disconnection.  So that is probably the reason it didn't start. Nothing sinister.

 

So I thought, perhaps the bong is a low battery warning.  Nothing I could find in the manual about the bong, but there are some posts here pointing to that. I rang up Skoda customer service, who were helpful, but could not diagnose it. They are going to check with me again in a week.

 

They did not say, "Yes the bong is a low battery warning".  Instead after talking to their technicians, and putting me through a few routines of walking up to the car and seeing if I was doing anything strange, we arrived at the hypothesis that the bong is a warning something is left switched on, but that doesn't start bonging immediately. So for example, I normally leave the sat nav off, but plugged into the cigarette lighter (red led glowing) and the radio on, but turn everything off by taking the key out.  Perhaps the small drain on the USB, plus a dicky battery is detected after a while, and the drain causes the bong?.  The technicians say the bong means something is left on, but it is not immediately triggered in all cases.  I checked that no bong started immediately I left the car.  Now I am going to try different shutting down procedures when I leave the car overnight. But it all  may be battery dependent too.  Tricky.

 

I was surprised the battery drained after a week (5 years old battery, so could be), so the current drain sounds a good guess. But I have been driving much less in the last few weeks, and this weekend was cold, damp, and very windy (car in hampshire), that may have accelerated the battery drain? So the matter is by no means settled - any if it is a drain, how to identify it?  Perhaps to do with the wet winter, and it is a short somewhere?

 

 

Any ideas? 

[Ryeman]

^^^ low voltage warning possibly.

New battery quite often resolves the otherwise inexplicable.

[nomdeplume]

Turn the radio off (on the radio) before turning the engine off and unplug the satnav from the fag lighter. That should fix the bongs but it won't fix a tired battery.

[gumdrop]

Contracting at a Brewery, they had a silo collapse, we had to work over to disconnect all the air and electrics

my boss likes the radio on, it flattened the battery after about two hours!!

[Llanigraham]

Last paragraph is the answer : (5 years old battery, so could be)

There have been several threads on here lately about batteries failing at around 5 years, and I understand it even says something similar in the Handbook now.

 

Leaving the radio turned on when you turn the ignition off makes no difference. When my battery was going I played around with a multimeter and there was no additional load with the radio on or off, other than the small "memory keeper" load. However do unplug the sat nav or do what many of have done and add an additional ignition controlled feed with a piggy-back fuse holder.

Edited 31 March, 2016 by Llanigraham

[SuperbTWM]

5 years isn't too bad for a battery, I would replace it and see how you go from there

[g6zru]

Contracting at a Brewery, they had a silo collapse, we had to work over to disconnect all the air and electrics

my boss likes the radio on, it flattened the battery after about two hours!!

Radio should (mine does) turn itself OFF after 30 mins if engine not running.

 

Fred

[skoda1982]

your not leaving the parking light on

[Ryeman]

your not leaving the parking light on

I wonder, would the voltage regulation system alow it to flatten the battery?.

Edited 31 March, 2016 by Ryeman

[Pagodarish]

I left the parking lights on expecting them to turn off after a while but no, completely flat battery the next morning.

[VAGCF]

Why would you expect parking lights to turn off? Rather defeats the objective.

 

Agree about the battery comments given the other posts. Probably wouldn't last much longer anyway even if it is OK. Better to go for a preventative replacement.

[Ryeman]

Does anyone leave parkers on overnight and not expect problems through a European winter?.

[Pagodarish]

My previous cars have actually turned them off after several hours, presumably to save battery, so it was a surprise when the yeti didn't.

[Ryeman]

My previous cars have actually turned them off after several hours, presumably to save battery, so it was a surprise when the yeti didn't.

I guess that's another factor in why BMW changes them annually.

[notyeti]

Thanks for your ideas. I have followed Skoda's suggestion and unplugged the sat nav, and switched the radio off before turning the ignition off and removing the key. No bongs so far. But the battery is probably well charged at the moment. So either the different switch off procedure or the well charged battery could be keeping the bongs at bay. I am leaving the battery in until it fails hoping to find out if it fails without any bongs. If it does then the bongs are unconnected to the battery. If it does bong, then I will still be in the dark.

It puzzles me why I can't find out what sensors and/or computer program condition should cause the bong.

[Ryeman]

There are all sorts of warnings for us 'nongs' these days .....leaving the key in the ignition, not left in P etc etc etc etc

[Eenymac]

I think Low Voltage is the most likely cause as I have had this happen to me quite a few times, even after I changed the battery a while back after 5 years.

In my case, it was leaving the front Dashcam plugged in and running overnight.  It seems to use more juice than the older rear one, which I found I can leave running for a couple of days before I get a bong! 

I keep meaning to get one of those voltage regulator / low voltage cutoff thingies so I can them plumb in the front dashcam cable properly and leave it plugged in.