Hello Acura folks,
New member here. I am coming here on behalf of a friend of my wife's who has a 98 Acura TL. She has health issues, not a lot of money and her car was stolen several months ago. Eventually the police found it in the weeds, someone had been living in it. Ignition was punched. She got the car to her repair shop and they got a new cylinder in and it runs fine, however the battery drains very quickly. A day or two or three. I was thinking about it and I wondered if someone was stealing this car someone would they have had to jump something that says the key is in the ignition? Then if the key is always in would things be energized that would drain the battery? I know nothing about Hondas except my son had a couple early 90s crx types that had about 300K on them. I can run a DVM and trace though. I have always thought the lines on this car are very classic.
Thanks for any help,
John

 

BTW I am replying didn't see the edit but- The car has been back in the shop 3 times for this and she has another appointment next week to see another shop.

 

I'd start with a parasitic draw test to determine which circuit is draining the battery:

 

I was also going to suggest the parasitic drain checking procedure.
My wife and I did it on my 05 Tundra and we found the circuit with the drain pretty quickly.

 

Thanks Guys,
Ok so it's a weird situation but that's ok. I get information that may or may not be correct at this point. I haven't had much time nor do I have a lot of business fixing people's cars but there is more information. She had the electric shop look at it. It is the cooling fan. The guy that figured that out didn't want to fix it. From the little I found there are two or maybe three sensors involved and one is a bit of a pain to get at. Strange the guy wouldn't fix it but she also has another friend's son looking at it tomorrow she thinks who fixed this on another car but not a Honda. Thanks for the suggestions. They were spot on but sometimes she wants help and sometimes not. She deals with a lot of pain. I thought Geez I could have done the drain tests but oh well. So my question now is (if it's even going to matter) where to find more information on the sensors and replacement. I searched but didn't come up with much here. I figured I might have some information for the younger guy coming to look at it tomorrow possibly.
Thanks for you help!
John

 

If the car is in the Phoenix area, I know a terrific Honda shop that has always been reasonable when I've taken my Acura there.

 

Thanks TempeTom,
Colorado Springs. Close but not close enough.

 

I would replace the cooling fan relay before replacing the cooling fan itself