Frage Used 540ad 2020, need HELP.

Hi everybody,

My name is Ruben and im new here, I am from Belgium but my German is not very good. My wife, 17mo daughter and I bought a second hand 540d ad last month. Before we owned a nugget and were very happy with it, that's why we were happy to find westfalia which was available immediately.

 I found some information on my problems and solutions for them, but because of the language barrier it's hard to understand everything

Since we got the van, i started using and testing all technical functions since we plan on going to the German alps in 3 weeks. I already ordered inside and outside inslulation for windows in the driver cabin. Inside insulation for the sliding and back door. And inside insulation for the pop top roof. I hope this will make some difference as for now, I am a bit in panic about the battery and heating performance, which was far better in our nugget. In the nugget we could wild camp for 3 nights (fridge, lighting and heating) and the battery was sufficient. In the columbus however:

1: I charged the battery, It then depleted in one week without using anything, it this normal?

2: 3 days ago, I charged the battery, put on the fridge and heating to 19°, from 4pm to 22pm, the battery then showed 2 bars left and 12.1v. And that's even without the boiler for warm water.

3: the heating seemed insufficient, so I purchased the window insulation for out and inside the drive cabin. I installed it this afternoon, again switched on the heating to 19° around 4pm. Then also put on the fridge. The lights started flickering and the heating turned off. I restarted it and 5 hours later the battery showed 12.2v and 3 bars.

I am a bit worried as we never visit campsites and with the nugget this was easy. Next holiday in 3 weeks seems impossiimpossible with the heating and battery not performing.

I also read a thread about freezing water lines in the kitchen, do I need to fix this? 

This morning 11.5v and 2 bars battery. Chilly inside, heating blowing cold air as bathroom was very warm. Do i have to leave the door open?

In our nugget never got under 12v. Maybe this is normal for this van?

Sounds like your battery is old. I also own a Columbus 540 and I directly replaced the existing two AGM 85Ah batteries by one 175 LiFePo. That makes a huge difference in terms of battery load duration and weight (the LiFePo has 20kg, the two AGM were 60kg).
Regarding your heating performance. Sounds like something is wrong. Do you have the winter package with floor heating? The heating water circuits of the Columbus tend to get blocked by old heating liquid. This requires cleaning it with air pressure. Also automatic valves to route the water to different circuits might break. I've heard all kinds of issues in this forum but also kastenwagenforum. It's hard, if you don't speak german of course. Try the chrome auto translate option. This helps a lot. I also added a lot of unofficial documentation here in the forum (check out my other posts if you like). I think I also posted a heating circuit scheme. But this was not created by me.

I don't have the winter package, I feel the floor is very cold. I'm going to look into insulating it as well as the dirty water tank.

Hello Ruben,

from the problem statement your shared, it's sound for me that your AGM? batteries simply not provide the power anymore. Two options available in principle by a) replacing by new AGM what is comparable cheap or b) replacing by a LiFePo what requires significant more invenstment. From my simply experience - FiFePo provides almost double usable capacity and provide always strong output over 13V even if 80% of capacity already used, combined with a lifecycle around >2000 recharges compared with AGM lower usable capacity around 50%, available output level and usually a recharge capability around 500 recharges it's explains the investment cost over the lifecycle. If you compare this with your expected travel routines (fixed camping places vs. places everywhere) you should been able to decide about the way forward.

Best wishes and fingers crossed, Tom

The batteries as worn, not broken. So the seller was not willing to replace them. Tomorrow a 200ah lifepo4 battery will be installed.

Insulation is sorted and underway.

Next problem is the seats, I have a bad back and the are really uncomfortable. Anybody have experience in a replacement?

Seats: I installed inflatable cushions under the back covers. Helped a lot.
Heating: Somebody recently posted an issue with similar effect as yours. The connectors to the valves for the bathroom and the rest were swapped. Not sure where those are on the 540, but easy to test and fix once you find them. 

Do you have a link to where I can read about this? Thank you

www.kastenwagenforum.de/forum/threads/he.../page-51#post-714614

you need to register for an account to be able to read this. 
post #1003 describes the problem. 
anything else you need to know about the Westfalia Diesel heater you can probably find in the previous 50 pages. It is a very useful thread.