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Hello Forum!
I have a 2003 Ford Focus SVT with 107,xxx miles. I have gone through 4 brand new batteries from Sam’s Club in the past year (2 in the last month). There is obviously a draw when the car is off. I have made sure there are no lights on, things plugged in, etc. It always goes dead after not driving it for 5-10 days. Had it towed by AAA to Ford Dealer. I thought it might be a bad subwoofer (stock in the SVT), they checked and said it wasn’t that fuse. Also said it would be around 2000 bucks to diagnose and fix! Which is complete bull, so I said don’t touch it. Paid them 25 bucks for nothing.
I went out and bought a multimeter and followed Eric’s Youtube video on finding the source of the drain. With key out and car left sitting for an hour, the ammeter read 0.07 amps (70 milliamps), which is a small trickle draw. I started to pull fuses one by one. All under the hood fuses were fine, started inside, but when I opened the door and connected the meter back it read 0.22 amps (from the door being open I suppose, but I had the dome light off). I figured I would keep going. I got to fuse 36 and when I pulled it the draw dropped to 0.01-0.00 amps. I think this is the source of the draw (hopefully). Fuse 36 says A/C control, Hazard light, Instrument Cluster in the manual. That seems to be a lot of wires it could be.
Anyone have any idea which wire to check first or how to figure it out easily? Anything that goes wrong more often than other things in the SVT? This fuse also kills my key fob keyless entry and alarm system it seems, fyi. Left fuse 36 out and shut car for an hour. Checked draw again on battery and it read 0.01 amps (10 mA). I wanted to make sure my opening the door didn’t make a difference. Since I still had this small charge after I left it closed up, I am pretty confident this is the source of the draw.
tl;dr SVT Focus battery draw isolated to Fuse 36 (instrument cluster). Ideas on which wire(s) could be the problem?
I appreciate anything you can tell me.
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here is a link for a wiring diagram to see whats on that line.
[quote=”college man” post=44661]here is a link for a wiring diagram to see whats on that line.
http://www.bbbind.com/%5B/quote%5D
Thanks for this. Looks like there are a ton of stuff on that fuse. Anything I should check first? How do I actually check for a draw on each wire?
You kinda did the test wrong. As stated in the video if you open a door then you can take the vehicle out of ‘sleep’ mode and all kinds of stuff turns on even if you had the dome light turned off. You sometimes have to wait up to 30 min for this to clear out before you can do your testing again.
That said I’m not sold on ‘Sams club’ batteries. It honestly doesn’t look like you have THAT much of a draw. I’d be looking harder at the battery and have it tested to be sure that it’s good before you condemn it. Also as stated in the video if you have any aftermarket attachments like a remote starter or security system, disable them, as they are often the cause of this type of problem.
[quote=”EricTheCarGuy” post=45492]You kinda did the test wrong. As stated in the video if you open a door then you can take the vehicle out of ‘sleep’ mode and all kinds of stuff turns on even if you had the dome light turned off. You sometimes have to wait up to 30 min for this to clear out before you can do your testing again.
That said I’m not sold on ‘Sams club’ batteries. It honestly doesn’t look like you have THAT much of a draw. I’d be looking harder at the battery and have it tested to be sure that it’s good before you condemn it. Also as stated in the video if you have any aftermarket attachments like a remote starter or security system, disable them, as they are often the cause of this type of problem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF1gijj03_0%5B/quote%5D
Thanks for the response! I understand about opening the door. But When I pulled fuses under the hood it was after letting the car rest without opening the door for over 30 mins. It registered 0.07amps. I understand other things come on when I open the door, but pulling that fuse made all the draw go away (0.01 amps), so can I assume this was the draw? I agree 0.07 amps is tiny and shouldn’t really drain the battery to that extent. That said, this is the fourth battery in a year (the first was not sams club, the last 3 were). Seems like a remote possibility that all 3 batteries were junk doesn’t it?
Thanks for your help on this.
Possibly. Quality and China don’t necessarily go together especially when it comes to auto parts. Besides, the FIRST step in ANY electrical diagnosis is to check the battery either by load testing it OR even better using a conductance tester. This will show if you have a battery problem or not. The battery is the alpha and the omega of the automotive electrical system and if it’s not up to par the rest of the system will suffer.
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