That's odd, because I've never seen people complain about this issue on any other automotive forums that I visit.


So they immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was YOUR fault, AND they don't know their product...

I must admit I didn't know the lights switched off automatically. Is this an 'auto off' feature in case you forget, or part of the convenience group where the interior and exterior lighting has a delayed off feature for personal security?

 

http://forums2.freshalloy.com/showth...t=dead+battery

http://forums2.freshalloy.com/showth...t=dead+battery

http://forums2.freshalloy.com/showth...t=dead+battery

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum...t=dead+battery

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum...t=dead+battery

http://www.mbworld.org/forums/showth...t=dead+battery

http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums...l=dead+battery

http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums...l=dead+battery

 

I left my car sit for a week in my garage. But i don't lock the doors,so it could be the alarm

 

It is the battery saver feature. It is on all mustangs (and most if not all fords). If you leave your headlights or interior lights on the car shuts them off automatically.

I was helping a friend change a flat on the side of the road at night and I left my headlights on to give us light. Before we were finished they had shut themselves off. I had to turn the switch off and back on.

I wouldn't recomend relying on this feature since it's based on a timer and in very cold weather the battery could still be drained. My battery went dead in summer inside an underground garage so that couldn't have been my problem.

 

TomServo92,

Very nice comeback! Tasteful, yet firm!

 

my cars fine. then again i havent left it sitting for more than a few days. i have an 05 gt. havent had any problems like this at all.

 

It is now at the dealer's, and from the way they sound, they're scratching their heads. Thanks for the lock tips, for I've been locking it by fobby every place I went this past year. Man, what's the point of having power locks if they're going to drain the battery like that?

Now, if it had done this three years on, it would have been more acceptable. . .

 

Good to see this is a global problem. Thanks for searching out the info.

On the other hand, not so good to see that this is a global problem.

 

More like helpful and accurate.

As opposed to yours: useless and irrelevant.

 

Then that explains why I can't unlock with key without the horn blasting. I'll have to try pushing down thein the garage next time and then opening with key in .

Ours started after 24 days no problem. I do disconnect for winter!

Cobra is coming up on its 9th Birthday, still with the same battery!

Now my 98 Jimmy SLT eats batteries

 

Dang Juice, where has this information been, I totally missed this!!! I took a trip last summer and left my 05 sit for a month , came back to a dead battery. And yep drivers side door window would not go all the way up when the door was opened like it should, but the passenegers side worked fine. I charged the battery back up , took it in for service and they replaced the drivers side door window mech they said had failed.

And yep I would have to agree , most new cars are computer/electronic loaded which means any new car battery could go dead after a week or two. Not unique to Ford!!

Now Im going to go look at my owners manual for that reset info............

And thanks TomServo02 for those search results, thats a real eye opener, makes you realize some problems run across all cars , high dollar to budget, they all having battery problems.

 

Here's a better idea for Ford--have a small reserve battery that has just enough juice to start the car once or twice (so you can get where you're going and also recharge the main battery). You could flip a switch to activate it when your main battery is dead. This would come in very handy at some airport parking lots in scary neighborhoods.

 

Hmmmm.... i can unlock my car with the key even with the alarm fully set. I can even do it with a cheap copy of the key (no chip). Not that I really thought there was a chip reader in the door, but i'm just saying.

I wonder if they changed something in how the alarm works.

 

What I did to prevent this from happening to me was to buy a Ctek battery charger for my car. The one that I got off e-bay came with a permanent adapter that attached to the battery that I just have to plug into.

http://www.ctek.com/US/MUS3300/features_benefits.asp

 

Well 97, I wouldn't know about first-year UFOs, but the fellows at the dealership checked it ten ways to Sunday and . . .couldn't find ANYthing that might have caused the battery to drain. So, she's back in her garage, awaiting the next adventure into the Twilight Zone or wherever. . .

 

They won't go through the hassle of checking the battery drain with the engine off either, because at .3 amps, you won't see the voltage drop to raise the flag. The battery will check out fine on the tester as well, as will the alternator. So they charge it up and send you home. The TSB addresses dead batteries as a result of sitting in the storage lot, riding the rail car and sitting on the dealer's lot. It was probably close to dead when you picked up the car. Take a look around a dealership. They always have one of those portable battery jumper units hanging around.

The way you drive the vehicle can be a problem as well. If you do very short trips, drive with a lot of accessories turned on (especially in winter, when it gets dark early) you actually don't keep up with the amps you pull out to start the car, because the engine doesn't run long enough to charge the battery back up. Running it in overdrive at low RPM doesn't help either. In this case, your battery is always running partially discharged. Eventually this leads to sulfation, which is a build up of sulpher on the surface of the plates, which impedes the chemical reaction that occurs when you charge the battery. Eventually, the battery won't accept a charge. I have an ex-Navy buddy who actually puts a smart charger on his car in the winter on a regular basis to make sure it is fully charged. He gets 10 years out of his batteries.
The flip side is if your battery gets fully discharged, and you have to fully charge it, the heat from a deep cycle charge can cause the grids to expand and crack the lead material on the plates. They say if you run your battery dead and recharge it, it knocks a year off the life of the battery. Cheap chargers that overcharge will also oveheat the battery as well as boil it dry (Very Bad)
SO keep your battery cleaned with baking soda and check your treminals tight. Put the car battery on a smart maintainer (that doesn't over-charge, which is bad too!) if you plan on letting it sit and she should be OK. (The battery in my wife's 97 Taurus is still OEM - Thanks for the Submarine Battery training Uncle Sam)

 

Here is one for the books. I kept having a problem with the battery and starting the car. Every time I would go to start the car it would reset the clock and radio/cd player....Started driving me nuts. FInally took it to the dealer and believe it or not, it was a loose cable on the positive(I think) side. It looked fully attached but you could turn it by hand and that must have been just enough to cause the problem. Tightened it back up and haven't had a problem since....THis was early on and not something I would have expected or looked at since it looked ok.

 

Hmmmm....this is worth checking and does make perfect sense. Loose and ceroded (spelling?? never type that word) battery cables can do some really wacky things. I've seen that before for sure. I'm going to check mine this weekend just to be sure.

 

Best one yet. I was staying at a hotel in Joliet, IL. Got up that morning to attend a company training session and went out to start my two month old 97 Expedition. WOuldn't crank over and boy was I ****ed at the most expensive vehicle I'd bought to that point. It was around 15 degrees and a foot of snow on the ground and it was still snowing like mad. I went to call raodside assistance at the front desk. While I was on the phone, one of the guys riding with me comes in and said he started the truck.

WTF I asked him. The guy was a native midwesterner, and he said all he did was turn the head lights on for about a minute. Then she cranked right up. WTF???? Apparently, excessive cold can inhibit the current flow in a cold battery, and turning on the lights can kick start the chemical reactions so the current will flow.

 

The battery dying IS the anti-theft working, can steal a car with a dead battery! Just kidding I have been victimized 2 out of 3 times that I have let the car set for a week!