CTCarGuy

I apoligize for starting another thread on this...I've read all the threads related to this problem and still am a little puzzled by my situation. My 2005 TL Auto w/nav has a 6 month old Acura battery that was fine all winter in CT. The other day I leave work after 9 hours, car starts fine. I make one stop on ride home for 15 minutes (no lights left on or anything) and the car won't start. I have it jumped and it starts right up and I head home. Car starts fine later that night and again the next morning. I still decide to bring it to my mechanic who tests the alternator (fine) and the battery, which shows it is drained very low. He holds the car for an hour to let all the systems in the TL go to sleep so he can test the drain on the battery. After 15 minutes the drain on the battery fell, but then went back up again a few minutes later. I beleive he said to 22 or 24 amps drawing(?). He believes that some parasitic drain is to blame.
I read the threads and pulled the #6 fuse by the wheel well and disengaged the HFL (or so I thought). Drove the car fine all yesterday so I figured that was the problem. This morning the car is dead again. Jumped it at home and it started right up. Hit "info" for the HFL on the dash and it said "Booting Up". How can that be when the #6 fuse is pulled. I also lost the interior lights along with pulling that fuse so I think it was the correct fuse I pulled. Now I'm not sure what to do next...

Any thoughts here would really be a help...thanks.

nfnsquared

You got the right fuse. The booting up message confirms the HFL is disconnected.

I guessing your mechanic said 24mA, not 24 amps. 24mA is well within the normal power off drain for the TL.

Have you removed, cleaned and re-tightened your battery cables?

CTCarGuy

I have not cleaned the battery terminals. Battery is newer and the connections look perfectly clean. I guess it is worth doing with baking soda and water(?)

Should I just get a new battery? Just weird that it works fine sometimes after hours of sitting and other times it doesnt start.

So if "22 - 24" is normal drain on a TL, why did it fall to under 6 for a while according to mechanic?

Do you think the HFL may be the culprit?

Thanks for helping...

nfnsquared

Looks can be and are deceiving. If I had a dollar for all the times someone said the connections are good (by just looking at them) and then found out later they weren't (and were fixed by a simple remove-clean-replace-retighten), I'd be a hundredaire.

I'd also go down to Autozone or etc. and have the battery tested to rule that out. I don't know what your mechanic meant by "tested very low".

Then you need to reconnect the HFL and do another drain check. Your mechanic really should have done the test with the HFL connected.

CTCarGuy

I'll check and clean the battery cables/connections today and see how that works out. The mechanic did check the drain with the HFL working and came up with the "24" level of draw. I removed the fuse #6 after he had checked everything.

I'll post again to let you know how it goes. Thanks for the info and advice. I'm hoping its not the HFL b/c the part is almost $500 bucks and I'm not skilled enough to attempt to repair the unit with the low cost solution in one of the threads.

For the record, my local Acura dealer in CT wanted $850.00 to replace the HFL unit.