Pajero Owners Club of South Africa

Last night I arrived from a quick 1000km trip, parked the Touareg in the garage, unpacked and locked up.

This morning I got in the car and the key-less engine start would not work. All the console light were on, but very faint. No MFD!

Then my eye caught the light switch - ON!

Damn, "Flat batteries!", I thought.

I put the key in (inspirational lateral thinking moment) and turned the key.
She started up as if nothing was wrong!

Some items were obviously re-set, such as the clock, but otherwise no problem.

The Touareg has two batteries:

• cranking (starter) battery
• "accessories" battery

The way these two interact is obviously not simple, but based on some intelligent algorithm.

It turns out that

• the two batteries are disconnected when the ignition is off
• the ECU monitors the second battery (that runs the accessories), and will switch non-essential items off when the accessory battery's voltage goes below some threshold

Great engineering!

hehe.

My pajero switches off lights when the key is removed, even though the stalk is on. If you need the lights with the key out you simply turn them off and back on.

Now, that's clever as well. No need for a second battery (then again that v10 probably needs 2 batteries to get her started and run all the electrics)

Granted the idjit owner left the lights on this time (only the side lights will be on with the ignition off), but other items can drain the battery as well (door, radio, internal lights etc).

The important point is that accessories will drain the second battery first, while on most vehicles, they will drain the primary (cranking) battery first.

just joking around.

It is very clever that it incorporates from the factory an intelligent dual battery system. The 2 batteries is also nice as you can always take them out, swap them, or use in parallel to get extra oomph.

All automatics should have this as standard IMHO.

Marius,
My wife's Jetta 5 does the same thing except it has no extra battery but the ECU will shut down certain things such as internal lights, boot lights , the auto lights function , radio, dash lights etc to channel all remaining energy to the starter.
Must agree clever engineering and ECU programming.

How much is the VW Treg 3.0V6 Tdi lower specked than the V10?

I'm starting to feel an affinity forming with the 3.0V6...

RoelfleRoux wrote:How much is the VW Treg 3.0V6 Tdi lower specked than the V10?

I'm starting to feel an affinity forming with the 3.0V6...

Quite a bit (eg sizes of brakes), but a 3.0 TDi with air suspension is what you want!
The T'reg came with so many options, that you will have to look at models on offer, or build your own spec.