Trident leisure battery

I’ve owned my 2008 Trident from new. I took it to Auto-Sleepers in August 2019 for a habitation check and, as the leisure battery (the original) wasn’t holding a charge, they replaced it (with a Hankook MF57412 12V 75aH). This battery has died suddenly. Even after an overnight charge in situ it shows a charge of only 6.5V. I was going to put it down to bad luck and have a replacement fitted by my local car garage where I have the van serviced. However, on looking up the battery online, I find that the MF57412 is a normal vehicle battery and not a leisure battery, which may account for its short life.

I’ve been in touch with Auto-Sleepers about this and await their response. Surely they know the correct type of battery to fit, although the service receptionist I spoke to didn’t know the difference between the two types.

I’d be glad for thoughts and advice from any other Trident/Trooper/Topaz owners.

We didn't buy our Trooper from new, so I don't know what was fitted from the factory on ours.

It's not unusual for A/S to supply with a vehicle battery rather than a leisure-specific one though. I owned a Transit-based A/S conversion several years ago and that had two vehicle-spec batteries (fitted by Ford from their factory).

Is it fair to assume that the leisure battery is located under the driver's seat?

Yes, it’s under the driver’s seat. I thought a leisure battery might be too high/tall to fit but I’ve looked online and there seem to be batteries available that should be suitable. I really think Auto-Sleepers should have told me if what they were supplying wasn’t properly suitable.

It seems that the seat has to be removed to take out the existing battery and put a new one in and I think there’s wiring (separate from the battery cables) that would have to be disconnected.

I was reading the manual (it was raining) yesterday for our (new to us) 2002 Trident and on the T4 there is a little tag at the side of the drivers seat. You move the seat forward as far as you can with the normal under seat bar and then flip the little tag to move it further to access the battery. Not sure if the T5 version will be the same.

I don’t think the T5 has that feature. Anyway, I’ve just had a call from AS. They accept that they fitted an incorrect battery and will change it for no charge - result! I need a habitation check done as well. Generally, they wouldn’t be able to do this until November but they’ll fit the replacement battery and do the habitation check on 26 May, so double result.