[Sid]

I’ve sold batteries to number of people that had 10 year old Lifelines that still had life in them. Usually its’s pretty easy to determine it’s time for new batteries and the biggest mistake is trying to stretch the usage to a point that all kinds of crazy things start to happen with your electronics.

Jeff has a deal going on 8DA’s and 4DL’s, so if you need new juice boxes, now is a good time to make the purchase.

As always, call me for shipping to other locations.

[Jackson]

Tom are there date codes on lifeline batteries? So the rule of thumb isn’t to replace after 5 years? Also one more thing whthings a person will notice when batteries need to

[Walter]

Sid,

5 years is still a good timeframe to replace the batteries taking a proactive approach. Many times the owner hasn’t owned the bus more than a few years and no way to tell what kind of abuse the batteries got in the past. If you bought the batteries new and have had them 5 years, then you pretty much know what you have and nothing wrong with stretching out the replacement time if they are still performing.

Usually the the first sign of batteries aging out is the time between full charge and discharge while dry camping. As an example, when the batteries were new, you could go 8 – 10 hrs with just minimal electric use, then it goes to 6 hrs, then on down to 3 hrs and lower. If you’re using auto-start, pretty easy to tell the batteries are fading by more frequent starts. Charles has exactly that going on now, but he may have other issues.

As to date codes, there will be a small round white sticker on the batteries with 2 letters. I can tell you the age with those letters. Prior to 2008, Lifeline branded the side of the case with 5 letters, so if you don’t have a white sticker, the batteries could be 8 years old or older.

Call me if you need anything Sid.

[Archived]

Thanks Tom for the information . My batteries are 4,5 years old but I don’t dry camp. I put on about 25,000 miles this year and either I’m plugged in to 50 amp or I run my generator. When going down the road I like to run 3 air conditioner’s so I put on a lot of hours on my generator. “That’s why you have one right” I service my generator every 100 hours. If I need batteries I’ll give ya a call.

Thanks

Sid

[Peter]

Tom,

I know that you guys are talking about house batteries. Since we have LI batteries for house, what kind of life should I get out of my 4 starting batteries? We are at 23 months and have 31,000 miles on the coach now.

Mark

[Archived]

Tom,

How old are my date code “DK” Lifeline batteries? They still seem to be working well. Am currently checking to see how long they run before reaching the 50% discharge rate of 12.2 volts. Thanks!

[Archived]

Mark 3 to 4 years for engine start batteries , I change them at 3 years just for no trouble

[Archived]

Mark, I think Peter is being conservative. For my 26 years of ownership I have used 5 years as my limit for start batteries and have never been let down. I just changed mine this year. The others were in since 2011. We had the coach parked from late April until September and when I pulled the old ones out the first of September they still had enough volts to spin the engine with no issues.

[Walter]

Alvie,

Your batteries were manufactured April 2011.

[Brett]

Thanks Tom!

Bus has been unplugged from shore power since 8pm yesterday, both inverters on, as well as several lights, fridge etc. Still at 12.5V after 12 hours. May get to save my battery replacement money for a bit yet. Going to see Jeff next week for some maintenance items and general inspection.

[Tim]

You’re doing good Alvie, the Royal I had was the best of all coaches for dry camping, simple 12v and five 8D batteries kept it going a long time. I once did 24 hrs while in the garage with just the fridge going, still above 12v when I realized I forgot to plug it in.

[Greg]

I second that on that coach best dry camping coach out there it would go 20 hours easy

[Walter]

I finally flipped the breaker back on after 30 plus hours. Voltage at 12.3V.

[Archived]

The difference between a Liberty and a Royale is dry camping , Liberty 6 hours and start Gen Royale 30 I will take the Royale period , what is the sense of batteries if you can’t use them , or you have to wake up to start the gen , when with a Royale you can sleep in , I have had all three , Marathon , Royale , and Liberty I will take a Royale any time , I am going to put in two more 8Ds so I have six total , so I don’t have to go power pole to power pole or run the gen , or why do I need the batteries so I can go pole to pole or run the gen , I know I need the batteries for some things but let’s make sure it will go all night 8 hours for sure, I know that for sure when I put in new batteries it only would go 6 1/2 hours before 24.4 and that is 50% , that does not even make sense to me!!’mmnn

[Archived]

Each coach, as designed is a compromise. Not a single professional conversion is especially good at any one thing, but all are generally good at everything. The problem is they are designed and built to satisfy general needs and since we all use our coaches in a different manner some are better than others at one or two things.

But the good news is with some exceptions we can make our coaches work very well for us. I think it would be great if I had much more time between needed recharging as Peter mentions, but I can ignore limited battery power by making it a practice to use my generator long and often. Even by doing that I still don’t come close to using it enough. I am typically either on the road or plugged in. However, when I am in the position of having to dry camp I turn on the generator and let it do what it was designed to do. Since I cannot overload my generator it is really nice to be able to have as many ACs on, use all the appliances, light the lights, and still not be anywhere capacity.

So while having a lot of battery capacity might be important at times, instead of relying on batteries I feel it is far better to use the generator and not have to worry about auto-start or economizing on lights.