Are the Bad Batteries being caused by high charging voltage?

[Pault]

I have a 2023 Maverick Lariat Hybrid. I took delivery in April of 2023. In November I started getting the dreaded Deep Sleep message. I started doing a trickle charge when I got the Deep Sleep. This gave me a few days before deep sleep happened again. I then put on a battery monitor to see what was happening. The monitor showed that after the trickle charge, the State of Charge went to 100%, but after driving a short distance, the SOC dropped down to 50%. It appears that the battery can no longer keep a full charge under load.

Took it to my local dealer. He kept it overnight. The next day he tells me that the battery was labeled correctly, but battery characteristics was wrong, so the battery was replaced. I took his explanation as another way of saying that the battery was bad.

During this process I noticed something that I consider to be strange. When the truck was running, the Battery Monitor was showing a battery voltage of 15.22 volts. From what I have read, the charging voltage should be between 13.6 and 14.6 volts.

I have some questions maybe someone can answer:

Is this 15.22 volts charging voltage causing the batteries to go bad?
Does this high voltage cause the batteries to fail after a few months?
Could this explain why different batteries seem to work?
Maybe they can handle overvoltage charging better?
Is there a way that I can lower this charging voltage?

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[Darnon]

Slightly above 15 volts isn't that uncommon for some modern vehicles. Mine has always charged at about that level.

 

[MetalsGeek]

I have not looked to see whether this is easy on the OEM battery, but can you open the battery caps to check the electrolyte level? A high charging voltage will convert the water to hydrogen and oxygen gas. If your electrolyte level is dropping, you can head off most battery damage by making sure the cells are topped off with distilled water.

 

[jdtexas]

Mine is also regularly above 15 volts and gradually decreases as I drive, so far no new problem with the new Dealer installed battery since Dec 13 2023.

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