Parasitic Battery Drain | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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Parasitic Battery Drain

stuarto

Active Member
Joined
December 22, 2015
Messages
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City, State
Toronto, Ontario
Year, Model & Trim Level
Explorer XLT 2013
Hi All,
I thought I would share what I'm experiencing with battery drain. I only uncovered this, this morning, and so have not managed to really get into exploration yet. This said though, I have an initial block that one of your good folk may have the answer to.

The situation is that with the Explorer parked in the garage, locked, nothing plugged into OBDII port, nothing plugged into DC outlets, no interior/exterior lights on, the constant battery drain is 2.1A. That is HUGE! and wrong.

So I tried to identify the source by checking every fuse in the book under the hood for voltage drop across them - nothing. I actually doubted my meter initially because I wasn't expecting this.
After this, I removed the cable that "plugs in" to the +ve battery terminal. I don't know if it has a specific name but it's the one with a green connector that runs left>right in direction. I'm hoping to paste the image below.


Now that I know this is the source, I don't know where it goes. Given the gauge of the cable, this must split into many other cables or fuses that I can then go check. Anyone have any ideas? Something isn't working right downstream from this connector...specifically, it's not turning off!

Thanks!


Screen Shot 2018-01-06 at 6.45.04 PM.png
 



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Don't forget there is always going to be some constant drain to keep memory circuits including the alarm alive although 2.1A seems a little much.

Peter
 






Is this key start or push button start? If the latter, how close are the keys kept to the vehicle? if the former, is the key left in the ignition at all times (it sounds silly, but have to rule it out.)

Do you get the 'shift to park' warning?
 






Thanks for asking :)

Key start. Nope, keys are not left in the ignition. I haven't had the shift to park warning, no. I just learned about that earlier today when googling this topic.

I'm still googling trying to find the circuit, from the green plug. I'm hoping that I'll find that and get then get closer to isolating the problem.
 






Don't forget there is always going to be some constant drain to keep memory circuits including the alarm alive although 2.1A seems a little much.

Peter

Agreed - too much. I would hope that drain is less than 1A. Memory takes next to nothing, not even mA. Alarm might take 250mA if it's a decent one...
Figure though, at 1A, most batteries would be dead after about 100 hours or about 4 days of not being used and that's plain crazy.
 












BTW, at rest spec for parasitic draw is at 50ma.
 












Thanks to @thefranchise713 - wiring diagrams really help.

In case anyone reads this in the future and needs help, the "Green Plug" powers the BCM & Cabin Fuse Box (Drivers side, under dash). Diagram WRFM13EXP006a is of the BCM itself. Diagrams WRFM13EXP006b and WRFM13EXP006c lists all of the fuses.

I'll be checking each of these tomorrow.
 






BCM & Cabin Fuse box is one unit, if it wasn't clear.

Pleased the link helped.
 






Did you wait the required 40 minutes after touching anything so that the battery saver would time out before making your current draw measurements?
 






Did you wait the required 40 minutes after touching anything so that the battery saver would time out before making your current draw measurements?

Yup, left overnight. >8hrs.

Something weird is happening to cause this drain. I'll pull the fuses from the cabin fuse box 1 by 1 tmrw. It would be great to narrow it down to one fuse, although unlikely.
I have seen weird things happen with LED's and negative switching (like the internal lamps in a car) and I'm wondering if this has something to do with it - will know tmrw!
 






All,
I wanted to close this thread off with an update.
In short I didn't get to the bottom of this to my satisfaction but...a couple of things:
1. When measuring the current drain, I had the hood open (somewhat necessary to do this easily). I have a hood pin and so that was open.
2. When running a couple of leads from the battery to a voltmeter, I closed the hood. Left car overnight. Battery voltage (before unlocking car) was 12.8v. This is essentially 100% charge and so the car could not have been drawing 2.1A for about 8hrs. Or, I have a REALLY good battery ;)
3. I did conclude that, with the hood open, the draw is from the Cabin fuse box. The "green plug" goes straight to the fuse box. I didn't go through removing each fuse one by one in the end. It's a pig to get to and it's been freezing in ON.

So, I am satisfied I don't actually have parasitic drain when the car is just parked. I just wish I had thought of the hood pin first.

Perhaps in the spring, I'll short the hood pin and then measure current draw accurately. For now though, there's no need.
 






2018 Sport ... dealing with parasitic drain. Need some suggestions please.

Out of no where, without any sign of weakening, my wife calls me while shopping 40 minutes from the house. Came out of store, and SUV is completely dead. No click-click-click, nothing.
Questions start to fly...what was left on? Anything left plugged in? Yada yada. Answers were no.
Bone stock vehicle...and all original, minus tires.

Jump started her at the parking lot. Took a few minutes being hooked up before it would even register it was getting juice. Then it fired right over. Not slow/weak as a typical jump start would play out.
Followed her home, and when she got home put my diagnostic charger on it. Analysis came back good, and already recharged to 95%?! This was around 2PM also.
Left the charger on it until it fully charged. Did research, and found a few articles reporting that the battery Ford puts in there is basically low quality garbage and the average life span is around 2 - 3 years. Next moring went out and put the multimeter on the battery...12.4V. Ok...doesn't sceam bad battery, but definitely not optimal. Being winter, I went ahead and not only replaced the battery, but stepped up to a bigger CCA/CA model.
So now with the NEW battery, I'm getting the same kind of troubleshooting results. Sometimes when I put the analyzer on it, it tells me battery is down to 65% after sitting, other times it holds at 95%. Granted, I expect a little bit of parasitic loss due to the computer crap all built in.

So the next thing I've done is run a full parasitic loss test. Hooked up the multimeter in line with the negative terminal and negative post. Switched it over to amps....
Funny thing is it never settles down to a real consistent amperage. Flutters between .03 and .01.... Be that as it may, I went fuse by fuse and pulled each one, and didn't see anything drastic. But again, the fluttering made it hard to determine. Switched over to just a test light. Put it in line the same way to see if I could detect any change in the light. Nothing, other than breaking a couple fuse tops trying to pull those POS plastic jobbies out. I also pulled the connector from the alternator in that test, as I've read a bad diode can leave circuits open. No changes there either.

Didn't know about the battery reset. My Maxwell scanner has the battery reset functionality, so I will perform that here in a bit when she gets home. I'm hopeful there. Didn't know about the left hand ok button menu either. Will try that. And honestly, I haven't pulled codes for some stupid reason yet. Will do that as well.

Just wondering if there is something else I can do that I haven't thought of.

Thanks in advance.
 






^^Welcome to the Forum :wave:
Your thread was moved to this one on the same issue.
I lease my vehicles and only have them between 3-4 years. Only the battery in the 2011 was replaced within the 1st year (I think). The others held up well. Good luck.

Peter
 






@Willy_B Do you have anything plugged into the ODB outlet at the same time you are seeing current draw?

Just to state the obvious:
1. Side/head lights are off?
2. Internal courtesy lights are off?
3. Anything plugged into a DC outlet?
 






@Willy_B Do you have anything plugged into the ODB outlet at the same time you are seeing current draw?

Just to state the obvious:
1. Side/head lights are off?
2. Internal courtesy lights are off?
3. Anything plugged into a DC outlet?

Vehicle off completely, doors are closed, all lights off, nothing plugged in to either the ODB or any of the outlets.
With the exception of while testing the under dash fuses. I had to have the door open for that. I don't fit under there otherwise.

So I'm really confused now. Per the comment above, at rest spec is 50 milliamps. I am actually reading a fluctuating 10 - 30 milliamps. So I'm not even spiked. Ugh.
 






Vehicle off completely, doors are closed, all lights off, nothing plugged in to either the ODB or any of the outlets.
With the exception of while testing the under dash fuses. I had to have the door open for that. I don't fit under there otherwise.

So I'm really confused now. Per the comment above, at rest spec is 50 milliamps. I am actually reading a fluctuating 10 - 30 milliamps. So I'm not even spiked. Ugh.
You're in a good place then. The rule-of-thumb I apply is anything less than 200mA is good!

But, this doesn't support how/why your battery is draining. So, another silly question for you...how are you measuring the current drain?
 






You're in a good place then. The rule-of-thumb I apply is anything less than 200mA is good!

But, this doesn't support how/why your battery is draining. So, another silly question for you...how are you measuring the current drain?
I have a battery charger that analyzes the battery and then charges it. Not using that as a biblical representation, but more of a bench mark.
Every evening I put the charger on and get the battery to 100%. Then morning I have been throwing it back on to see what it reports.
95%, 75%, 65%...those have been the reports. Since putting the new battery in, I haven't seen below 75%. But to me, that just seems too much. Because of where we live, most places she goes is driving at least 15 minutes to destination. So that thing should usually be topped off.
She took my car today, so I will do the reset.
 



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I have a battery charger that analyzes the battery and then charges it. Not using that as a biblical representation, but more of a bench mark.
Every evening I put the charger on and get the battery to 100%. Then morning I have been throwing it back on to see what it reports.
95%, 75%, 65%...those have been the reports. Since putting the new battery in, I haven't seen below 75%. But to me, that just seems too much. Because of where we live, most places she goes is driving at least 15 minutes to destination. So that thing should usually be topped off.
She took my car today, so I will do the reset.
I agree that 100 down to 75%, overnight, seems excessive however I also wouldn't base any decisions on what's reported by a battery charger without knowing exactly was X% correlates to.

If you have Forscan (and perhaps other tools) you can interrogate to get what the car thinks the charge level is at. Have you tried this?
Again though, this is an indicator only and not absolute. For example, before I most recently replaced my battery, it would commonly show the battery at 20-35% and yet I never had an issue starting the car
 






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