As all Grand California owners will know, if you are not plugged into the mains your original leisure battery will not last very long! The original leisure battery installed under the bonnet has about 45 usable amps if it is fully charged and in good condition, Your fridge alone will use about 40 amps a day, so you can’t even stay off grid for a day purely running the fridge! We have upgraded countless VW Grand California’s now so they actually work if you are not plugged into the mains; this upgrade below is the most common one we carry out.
Our most common upgrade is to relocate and install a new 300AH Fogstar lithium battery into the rear cupboard. This installation is fitted with minimal changes to the wiring system of the original Grand California, so it will not affect any warranties, if VW get upset about the modification, it can be put back to standard very easily to placate them, and then be reconnected.
The 300AH Fogstar battery has 300 usable amps, so will provide 6 times the storage capacity of the original battery!
Unfortunately none of the original charging functions fitted into the Grand California will charge a Lithium battery correctly, so with every upgrade we recommend upgrading the split charge. We can install a 50 or 90 amp upgrade, the VW Crafter alternator will happily provide a 90 amp charge current on tick over, so When you are driving the vehicle it will not take long to recharge the battery.
The upgrade in the pictures included a 300AH Fogstar battery, a 50 Amp split charge upgrade and a 1.6KVA Victron inverter fitted with a mains priority switch so the plug circuit was live when you are not plugged into a mains hook-up
