How to disconnect 12v battery when going on vacation?

[luca.marchini6]

Hi all, 

I am seeking for some help. Since more than 1 year my rav4 hybrid (2020 Europe) tends to have the 12v Battery empty when I come back from a holiday of more than 10 days.

Is there a chance to disconnect the Battery before leaving? I am tempted to say that the red cable from the attached picture would be a good candidate but I have no way to check this on documents.

Do I loose any calibration by disconnecting the Battery? 

Thank you, 

Luca 

[philip42h]

If you really want to disconnect the 12V auxiliary Battery, your best bet would be to remove the connection from either the positive or negative terminal of the Battery in the boot.

The Owner's Manual gives a list of things that would need to be initialised after the Battery is reconnected:

Personally, I would be inclined to investigate ways to top-up the auxiliary battery while the car is standing using either a smart charger or a solar charger ...

[Derek.w]

Hi Luca, have you tried solar charging.

[luca.marchini6]

Hi all, I haven't thought about solar charging. Even if most of the time this happens I am taking a plane and the car is in a garage, not sure it would help much.

[TonyHSD]

Just disconnect the negative terminal of the 12v Battery and place a towel over the boot hook to prevent lock the hatchback door as it’s electric and you need 12v power to open afterwards. This is the right way to do it. 

[Red_Corolla]

It might work, but you would need to check at the Battery with an ammeter to ensure no power is consumed after removing the cable. We don't really know if that cable is the power distribution to the fuse box or, for example, an input from the inverter for charging. The only way to be 100% sure is to take a 10mm spanner and remove the negative from the Battery like Tony says. If you are able to fold the rear seats from the passenger compartment then that's one way you could access it to reconnect without the security risk of leaving the tailgate open (make sure you have a torch available ☺️).

[Mojo1010]

You have a garage, does it have a power source in there? Buy a Battery charger if so. 

[luca.marchini6]

Thank you all for your feedback. My problem is that it mainly happens when I leave the car at the airport, so no access to power source, no exposure to direct sunlight and I would prefer to avoid to leave the tailgate open. That's why I was hoping that it was possible to disconnect it from the fuse box.

I talked to some colleagues who have the same car and it seems be a fairly common problem for this car.

Maybe the best solution for me is to always have a portable jump starter before leaving the car standing for more than 10 days.

[Mojo1010]

Perhaps changing to a much higher capacity Battery and a jump start for peace of mind and hassle free.