P38 battery drain

[automania]

Hi people just wondering what the common battery drain
problems are on a 96 4.6 hse. It was run tues and was flat this afternoon, battery is fairly new cheers mike.

[muddysteve]

usual one is becm not sleeping

having any other strange trouble like random alarm triggering or interior lights playing up?

[automania]

no mate nothing like that, the only other problems are you have to be right next to the car to lock/unlock and i think the little red park light on the shifter stays on dimly, tho im not sure if it still does that or not. cheers

[muddysteve]

if the little red light stays on dim the becm isnt sleeping

i suspect someone has disconected the aerial to the rf receiver (common bodge) to get round it and thats why you need to be so close to pop the doors

you need to get the becm to sleep and to rule out the reciever disconect the power plug to it once youve locked the doors (with you in the car) then wait exactly 2 minutes and the little red light should go out

the reciever is on the drivers side under the lump of plastic the rear parcel shelf sits on, fold the seat forward and undo the crosshead screw then prize out the plastic rivits along the side in the boot, then it sort of pulls off (there are a couple of clips holding it against the rear glass but they should just pull out)

the reciver is a little black box about the size of a fag packet with 2 plugs, the purple cable is the aerial and the other black plug is the power to it

[Bigjohn]

We installed an Owl electricity meter for the house (keeps an eye on the power being used by the daughters hair dryer straighteners fan heater pc stereo etc) and if we didn't use the p38 for two days Friday to Monday the battery was flatter than a squashed flat thing, very usefull on a Monday morning :roll: found a 0.6 to 0.9 amp drain on the battery all the time, turned out exactly what muddysteve said the unit on the o/s/r wasn't letting the allarm or the whole BCM go into sleep mode the cure for me was to remove the purple wire (don't remove the other wire going to the glass or your radio will stop working) all better and with good batteries in the fob it works from about 3 ft away on the drivers side, only 2ft less than before :? but now I have experienced the fill up with fuel and find the immobiliser wont come off trick in fuel stations twice, the cure? ask for peeps to push you clear of the pumps :(

[fuzzy]

i suspect someone has disconected the aerial to the rf receiver (common bodge) to get round it




Like the man says, common bodge to fix it properly you need to find out which part of the system is giving the problem and get it sorted, short cuts and bodges get nobody anywhere and normally either cause more hassle further down the line.