Changing Battery

[CharBaby]

When changing the battery in my SILs 2014 GMC Terrain 2.4L 4cyl, this vehicle DID NOT LOOSE any dashboard(computer) information. And, I had the battery out of the vehicle for quite some time while I removed it, brought it to AAP and came home with a new battery. At least 1 hour.

*The clock kept time.
*The trip odometers both kept thir same miles.
*The compass only went to "CAL" then reset properly.
*The radio stations ALL stayed right where they were.
*The TPMS didn't need a recalibration.

My question is, are there capacitors in TERRAIN/ EQUINOX & other GM vehicles for all of these features that allow them to keep their information?

 

[dogememe]

Probably not capacitors. But it's probably saved to flash storage.

 

[Donald]

I agree probably flash memory like a USB memory stick. Not sure why the auto manufacturers haven't been doing this for a long time.

 

[JHZR2]

As I recall in my 98 S-10 it keeps the radio stations and clock. Trip odometer resets though...

 

[FA_WRX]

I would say probably a EPROM circuit.

 

[CR94]

How could the clock keep time with no power, unless it has a built-in backup battery? The other stuff (including time of day at time of battery disconnection) could be stored in non-volatile memory.

 

[Dave9]

Yes, the clock would require a supercap or traditional battery to keep time that long.

 

[CharBaby]

Thanks all.
I was just wondering if anyone knew exactly what GM uses in their vehicles that allow the system(s) to keep their settings. As I mentioned earlier, the only feature that needed time to reset was the compass which went into "CAL Mode" and then reset on its own while driving.

 

[Sierra048]

Timely thread for me.

The battery in our Sierra is going. I watched a few YouTube vids because of the bus bar from the positive post on the battery. One of the vids I saw the fellow hooked up a 12v battery tender to the positive and negative cables because he didn't want to lose any of his settings. Do any on here feel this is necessary or is it just as safe to just remove the cable from the battery terminals and replace? I can't think of any settings I would worry about losing. I don't use the radio for my music.

 

[CharBaby]

I think that not losing the settings is mostly for convenience but, there may be other reasons.
Any time that I've replaced any vehicle battery, I just take off the +/- terminals and don't concern myself with anything else other than getting another batter in a timely fashion.

 

[Sierra048]

Originally Posted by Char Baby
I think that not losing the settings is mostly for convenience but, there may be other reasons.
Any time that I've replaced any vehicle battery, I just take off the +/- terminals and don't concern myself with anything else other than getting another batter in a timely fashion.


Thanks. That's what I've always done. Since I haven't had to change the battery on either one of our 2014 vehicles I wasn't sure if engineers had made it more complicated. I wouldn't be surprised if they did.