JL battery charging start stop not working

J

Jimc65

New member
Recently my start stop was not working so I looked at its status on the dash, it said not ready battery charging. The battery said it was charging at 14.7volts. I took it into a dealer and they told me that the battery needed charging that they would keep it over night. They called me and said it was ready. I picked it up and the charging was 13.5 or so on the way home, it was too cold for stop start to work but the charging looked better the ne t day I took the Jeep on a good 2 hour drive and the stop start did not work and it said battery charging. 14.6volts again.
I just came back from the dealer and i have another appt but she tells me both batteries test ok they cant change them. Any thoughts what it could be. Sorry this was long

Jim
 
JimLee

JimLee

Hooked
Tell them to isolate the batts and test them separately, they are vastly different in size and capacity, throwing a load tester on the main batt in the engine bay with the aux batt still connected will skew the test results. I've read of a few people with bad alternators but not nearly as many as people who have had issues like yours where one or both of the crappy factory batts has died or degraded (anecdotal evidence at best, I know). It almost always seems to be the batts, dealerships seem to deny it's the batts quite a bit, but the problem seems to go away for most when the batts are changed under customer pressure. If they have to change a batt, try and get them to do both, or there's a chance you will be back. Putting a new main batt in with a bad aux battery can destroy the new main batt in a matter of days. There are Jeep dealership techs out there still putting 6 quarts of oil in JL's, how many do you think even know there's a second batt in there? And all this assumed you have the standard 3.6 with ESS, if you have one of those mild hybrid ones with a BSG I have no experience with those.
 
bobfriesenhahn

bobfriesenhahn

Hooked
I have heard that when the auxiliary battery is failing that the stop start system may have problems. The battery is nicely buried under the fuse box and a bunch of connectors. The battery is also a rare size. Eddie made a video about replacing this battery.
 
J

Jimc65

New member
Jimc65 said:
Recently my start stop was not working so I looked at its status on the dash, it said not ready battery charging. The battery said it was charging at 14.7volts. I took it into a dealer and they told me that the battery needed charging that they would keep it over night. They called me and said it was ready. I picked it up and the charging was 13.5 or so on the way home, it was too cold for stop start to work but the charging looked better the ne t day I took the Jeep on a good 2 hour drive and the stop start did not work and it said battery charging. 14.6volts again.
I just came back from the dealer and i have another appt but she tells me both batteries test ok they cant change them. Any thoughts what it could be. Sorry this was long

Jim
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Sorry its a 2020 2.0 turbo. They tell me they tested both and both are good but it constantly charges at 14.6 when the stop start works it not off for long the it starts and it will say charging battery
 
JimLee

JimLee

Hooked
Jimc65 said:
Sorry its a 2020 2.0 turbo. They tell me they tested both and both are good but it constantly charges at 14.6 when the stop start works it not off for long the it starts and it will say charging battery
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One of those batteries, or both, isn't holding a charge. Either that or the charging mechanism (alternator, or generator on the BSG models) is putting out voltage but not enough amperage and is shot, again there is the chance of a parasitic draw (large), but I still think the culprit is the batteries.
 
JimLee

JimLee

Hooked
HighwayTrout said:
I’m convinced the auto start/stop works on the FM frequency.
Fucken magic.

No rhyme or reason when it does or doesn’t turn off when I come up to a stop
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Disable it, it's just going to lead to other problems in the future. It's a horrible implementation of a stupid idea.
 
TrailHunter

TrailHunter

Hooked
I can disable that crap on my F150 by unplugging a wire under the dash... it tricks the truck into thinking there is a trailer hooked up or something.... Regardless, what I notice is when the Auto Start/Stop is plugged in, it's like the truck idles a little lower at a stop... almost border lining a stall. I think the computer is trying to ride that thin line of Off/on.... but when disabled it runs so much smoother. I'm not a fan of that shit at all.
 
JimLee

JimLee

Hooked
HighwayTrout said:
What other problems will it lead to?
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Well, I think there's enough evidence out there to say that it leads to shorter lifespan of batts. I've seen reports of people experiencing massive lag between the time in letting off the brake and the engine starting back up unexpectedly, leaving them in less than optimal situations in heavy traffic. I have seen people report a complete failure of the entire system where it goes into an ESS event and the vehicle never starts again, one guy says he required a PCM change and another had his vehicle bought back because FCA just couldn't figure out what was going on (of course both of these could not by caused by ESS, the ESS not working could be just a symptom). Increased wear and tear on your starting system and engine, engine starts have long been considered one of the most wearing processes on an engine, although you are not cold starting it every time and engines/ oils have come a long way since then and some people say it's not an issue. I'm on the fence about this one, but I personally have decided it's not a risk I want to take. I also personally don't believe for a moment that FCA engineered a "heavy duty" starter that will last longer over thousands of extra starting events. It's all pretty anecdotal for sure, but when I bought my JL and had my first "what the fuck" moment when ESS kicked in, I decided I'm going to research the shit out of this system so I have some kind of idea what to do if it every leaves me stranded off road. All I have to go on is what others have experienced and shared on various forums, but the internet being the internet...well, you know. I live and wheel in an area where you could go days without seeing another soul, and having to get towed out of some of the places I go could cost thousands of dollars so I tend to approach everything with a "what will it take to get me back to pavement or at least close if this (insert doodad) piece of shit fails". I've hiked out of a few places before because of a broken down vehicle (most notably a Jeep axle that snapped a tube clean off in the Nevada desert 27 miles from the nearest road), and I always go prepared for this, but it's not something that I enjoy recreationally. So after deep diving various forums and trying to gather as much info on the ESS system as I could I determined it's a risk I don't want and there's something I can do about it. But I understand your skepticism, or anyone else's , because it is just the internet after all and all the information I've found is based on other peoples experiences. So I apologize and I should have worded my post as "it's just going to lead to other problems in the future in my opinion". It kind of irks me when people speak in absolutes about things and I shouldn't have done so myself, everybody's use and circumstances are different, which often leads to different outcomes.
 
JimLee

JimLee

Hooked
Slimebones said:
How do you disable it?
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Tazer, I don't believe the Flashcal from superchips has this enabled. There's also a couple of aftermarket items that plug in to your security gateway that just remember your last button push, so push it once and when you restart the vehicle the button remains enabled which disables ESS all the time, unless you manually push the button again to enable it, auto start stop eliminator is an example of one of these units.
 
JimLee

JimLee

Hooked
Slimebones said:
How do you disable it?
Click to expand...
Some people have also disconnected one of the hood plunger switches which doesn't affect anything else but leaves you with a annoying ESS light on your dash forever, none of the other methods give you a light that I've heard of. I can't remember which plunger, but I can find out if you desire the free route.
 
bobfriesenhahn

bobfriesenhahn

Hooked
The stop start system on the JL does not use a starter. Instead it captures energy from when the engine stops so it can use it later (not electrical).
 
JimLee

JimLee

Hooked
bobfriesenhahn said:
The stop start system on the JL does not use a starter. Instead it captures energy from when the engine stops so it can use it later (not electrical).
Click to expand...
That only applies to the models with BSG. A lot of us have regular old traditional starters that are used to crank the engine for every ESS event.
 
bobfriesenhahn

bobfriesenhahn

Hooked
My 2.0 apparently has the pneumatic start/stop system. So 450 miles into a 2000 mile trip into some of the most remote areas in the country, I got a scary email from Jeep telling me that there was a problem and that I should take the jeep to a dealership immediately for analysis. I was told that the engine might get wedged in such a way that it would not start again without major work. So I proceeded on my journey and nothing bad happened.

I have since received another scary email about the throttle control after just driving down/up two of the more challenging 3000+ ft winding grades in the country and across seldom traveled routes in California and Arizona. Good reason I did not notice since I would likely already be dead if the described scenario had happened.
 
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