Hello all,
2 weeks ago I bought a 09 Sebring, The car is the proverbial dogs doodahs!! It is a beautiful comfortable stylish and modern car, feature packed, stunning inside out and is a solid, beautiful drive! Just 1 issue! The b***** battery keeps draining empty!!
Day after I bought the car, (had been driving most of the day before) tries to unlock, nothing opening, opened manually, tried to start, totally dead, not a flicker of aything. AA called, confirmed the alternator was brand new, checked the battery, which the previous owner had only just replaced and paid £180 for the right version, Spiral cell or something like that. all receipts, guarantees etc.. Battery was completely drained, he fired it up no problem and I spoke with the previous owner and he advised me to disconnect the big green fuse which I believe controls all the memory and saves battery power, which I dis and for the rest of the week, no problem at all.
Last Wednesday, (absolutely throwing it down outside!!) reconnect the fuse as usual, try to unlock, wont unlock, sinking feeling emerging and yes, the battery was completely dead!! AA out again!
No problems up until this evening! Car used all day, unlocked normally, went to start, all electrics fired up, engine would not turn over, hooked it up to the old car, wouldnt start!! (thinking it could be something more serious now!!) played with the key as I suspected some sort of alarm/immobiliser issue (will expand upon in a minute) after fiddling with the key, the red alarm light came on the dash, car locked, then I unlocked, tried to start and fired up straight away!!
Now, the alarm has been very tempremental over the past few days especially! sometimes it beeps when locking, others it doesnt.
Yesterday the central locking would not work in any shape or form nor could I open the boot with the fob, I locked it manually and around an hour later the alarm went off, used the fob to open and it worked, all back to normal after the alarm went off!!
The alarm has been driving me nuts over the past few days, just going off for no reason at all, lock the car and 1 minute later alarm goes off. turn it off and another minute later off it goes again!
I really suspect this could be the drainage culprit as I had something very similar with an Audi I had, however that was not a factory alarm and that got disconnected. I believe this is the factory alarm.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated before I take it to an auto sparky and let them rip the wiring to bits and come up with nothing.
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Parasitc drain test required.
If you want there's a number of examples of this on youtube.
And initially no wiring in bits!!
Bad news is modern cars are just packed with many electrical systems that are active when key is off,
at least partially.
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Check the simple things first.
Make sure there's no light in the boot or in the glovebox that's staying on all the time.
Then, if not, you need to check the standby current, as hardway says.
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As a temporary measure, you could buy a trickle charger and put it on a trickle charge over night.
This'll keep it topped up until you resolve the problem. I do this to my motorbike cos it has an alarm and the bike is used very infrequently.
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