Hello. I think I'm at my absolute limits with this car and its electrical problems, and if I don't get this solved I'm just selling it away for whatever Carmax or Carvana gives me and buying a cheap Corolla or something.

My 2007 RDX has this intermittent parasitic draw which drains and kills the battery after a couple days of not driving. Sometimes that "couple days" is just overnight, sometimes it's 3 days, there's no telling ever.

My solution was to buy a battery killswitch off Amazon and install it (to the negative terminal of the battery). It has this turning knob, which if you turn counterclockwise, cuts the connection to the battery. If you tighten it back up, you regain the connection. I thought this was the ultimate solution to my problem. Although it's kind of a hassle to have to pop the hood and do this every time, at least you knew that you'll have a car that starts up every morning.

It worked like a charm for the first week. But now, every time I reconnect the battery, the alarm starts blaring. Honestly, it's just embarrassing waking up the neighbors every single morning with my deafening alarm and looking like I'm stealing my own car at any public car park. This just wasn't a thing at all for the first week I've done this, and now suddenly I can't start the car without giving myself a jumpscare every time. I honestly don't think I'm doing anything different and have no idea the car suddenly decided to think it's being stolen every time.

Here's the sequence of my moves when leaving and starting up the car, if that helps:

When leaving:
1. Put the car in park.
2. Pop the hood.
3. Turn off the car, remove key from ignition.
4. Get out of the car and close the door.
5. Lock the car by pressing the fob twice, hearing the beep.
6. Open the hood, disconnect battery.
7. Close the hood.

When starting up:
1. Open the driver's side door manually with the key.
2. Pop the hood.
3. Close the door (don't lock it)
4. Open the hood and reconnect battery (It's at this step that the alarm starts blaring, even though it never did before.)
5. Close the hood.
6. Unlock the car with the fob.

Does anyone have any idea as to why this suddenly started happening?

Thanks.

 

Wouldn’t the “ultimate solution” be to resolve the parasitic draw?

 

At this point that's just not happening. I've tried every single standard solution (removing the HFL, changing door lock actuator, AC clutch), had two independent mechanics check it (both times the car behaved perfectly and they only found a ~60 mA draw, which shouldn't be killing the battery this fast), tried to check it myself (had the same conclusion). It's like that thing in quantum physics, it's never there when I try to observe it but I don't drive the car for a single day and boom it's dead. Honestly I'm just sick of spending time and money and mental resources on this. I just thought maybe this makeshift solution, although inconvenient, will give me some peace of mind but no. Now I'm getting targeted by the HOA because my alarm goes off every morning. I should have just listened to all the online reviews telling me to stay away from this car because of all the electrical problems.

 

Time to do your own test to see which circuit is the culprit.


Have you already tried replacing the battery

 

Maybe experiment by deactivating the 'auto door lock' system functionality entirely first in the car's computer; thusly, only using the key, not the fob, for opening or locking.
That way the systems thinks you will only be using the keys for locking / unlocking?
Since the car alarm functionality is disabled with the battery power disconnected anyway, at this point, all you need is to get the car locked, for the night, and hopefully keep the alarm from going off upon morning battery reconnect & start-up.




Good luck.