VTECboy

My battery dies in about a week if I don't use the car. The dealer keeps replacing the battery and I'm now on my third one in three months. I believe that this is just the symptom and not the real problem. I have a tester and would like to check the amp drain on the battery while the car is off.

Not sure what tester function to use or where/how to hook it up.
Any auto electric hot-shots out there?
Thanks for your replies,
Jim

Desert_TL

You can use any multimeter in the following fashion to determine the draw on the battery when everything is off. Disconnect either battery cable from the battery. Connect one probe of the multimeter to the now-naked battery post and the other probe to the now-disconnected battery cable. The multimeter is now operating as an ammeter and any curernt draw from the battery must pass through the probes and be metered. Set the multimeter to read amps. Turn the ignition on but don't crank the car (or else your multimeter will blow up). Make sure everything that needs resetting is reset (since you disconnected the battery). Try turning the stereo on and go look at what the multimeter is reading. It should be several amps. If so, then everything is working. Turn the ignition off and take your key out, lock the doors, make sure everything is off. Now look at the reading. Assume your battery is a 700 amp-hour battery (good approximation I think). If your current draw with everything turned off and the car locked up is 1 amp, then your battery will last 700 hours before it is completely dead. It will take 350 hours before the battery is half dead and you will probably have trouble cranking but not impossible. What you need to know in order to make a good comparison is what the "typical" all-off current draw is on a TL and what it is on yours. If yours is mucher higher than "typical", then you have a problem somewhere.

csmeance

also try seeing how much the milliamp draw is when the car is off and locked. It should be around 20 milliamps. The acura batteries die if the car is not used for more than 2.5 weeks. In my MDX, the battery constantly died drew 2000 miliamps when locked and off (every 7-9 days) they first thought it was the handsfreelink, then blamed my alarm (mobilegaurdian) and so forth. Now it is a lemon and honda will be buying it back.

Adobeman

It might not be that easy to find a multimeter with enough DC amperage measuring capability. Most inexpensive ones don't measure more than a half and amp or so. With those you may find that the initial in-rush of current into the car when you hook up things will blow the fuse in your meter. I might suggest that you use a clamp on style ammeter instead. It will be much easier. If you do what deset_tl says you probably want to have the leads of the ammeter shorted together and then separate them. This way the initial current isn't going through the ammeter directly. If you do not follow then don't do anything. I don't want you accidentally shorting something.

But, if the car is still in warranty then the dealer is not doing you any favors by dumping in a battery every few months. Have you done any electrical mods ? If not then get them to figure out what is going on and stop blowing you off with new batteries.

And csmeance, while your alarm might not be to blame I did once have an aftermarket alarm that WAS the problem. I understand why dealers have that attitude for aftermarket electronics.

fsttyms1

I found that a bad outside temp sensor was causing mine to wear the battery down. It got to the point that it would go dead in 2 days if not started.

But i agree with teh above. Have teh dealer find the cause of the drain, not just keep replacing batteries.

CobraGuy

You can also use your multimeter in the fashion described above (post # 2) but in the volt mode...not amp. If you are pulling 12 volts with everything off, you have issues. However, I like the amp mode in post 2. Just remember to NOT turn the car on when your meter is hooked up...you could damage the meter. And you don't care what the car reads anyway with it in the on position...you want to know what it reads when it's sitting with everything off. If you have an excessive draw, start pulling fuses until it goes away. You have your problem circuit. If you don't find it with fuses, you are stuck with disconnecting components until you find it. Draws can be a real bitch to diagnose. Start with any accessories you have installed since they are a likely culprit.

cdmontgomery

Just disconnect ground wire at battery and use dc amp setting on your mutimeter -
Residual current flows through meter instead of ground lead. All doors & trunk closed - no power loss except for the parasitc drain you are trying to measure.

The parasitic drain for the TL (mainly door alarm & clock) is 30 ma - it will read another 200 ma for the first 10 minutes after shut off until the HFL goes into its sleep mode.

30 ma is about 1/33 of an amp (30 thousanths). The stock battery has an amp hour capacity of 65. If we roughly assume that to crank the engine we need 2/3 battery capacity, we have about another 22 amp hours available to cover the parasitic drain over an inactive period in the garage. We should have 22 x 33 = 726 hours or 30 days available and still be able to start.

I've had 2 TL's (and 04 AT & 04 MT) and neither would start after 5-6 days in the garage. Finally traced the problem to the Delco green eye OEM battery - the dealer changed to the stock Acura replacement part battery (Acura label / no green eye). No problems since - I have left car for about 34 days in cold garage and had clean quick start.

I personally would not drive this car with the green eye battery - just my opinion

Desert_TL

Take note of this. In my original post up there I think I quoted an amp hour capacity of 700 - I was accidentally thinking of cranking amps and not amp hours. 65 amp hours sounds good. Be sure to use this number in your calculations. 30mA parasitic draw sounds pretty good. Good advice everyone!

aaron

Hey guys.....I'm out on the road so looking for advice upon my return home, I have an 05 TL I just replaced the battery therefore I'm on my 3rd battery and the car will be 4 years old in July...65k miles.

So as I mentioned I'm out of town and out of warranty therefore just went to the local auto store and had the tests done on my dead battery (checked it myself this morning and found a dry cell...I thought this was a sealed battery my bad)

anyways, the test shows a 1.27amp draw with the car off.....the question I have is if the car wasn't locked b/c I was sitting in it with the window down would that increase the loss to 1.27amp from the expected 30ma.

I'll test further when I get home and have my tools...but I don't want to be replacing batteries all the time.....1.27 amp draw doesn't sound that bad, but, I need to know the exact test conditions in order to get the correct readout...someone above said you need to have the doors locked which I did not.

6SpdASpec

aaron,
1.27 amp is a lot of draw, sounds like you have a trunk light on or something. It should be less than .035 amps (35 milliamps) in general for all cars. Anything over .050, you have a parasitic draw. I am currently having problems with my 04 TL, I don't suspect it's the HFL since it goes down from .24 to .09 amps after couple minutes. I am still hunting this .09 parasitic draw because I have to jump start the battery after been sitting for about a week.

By the way, can someone tell me where and how to disconnect this HFL? Thanks.

RACINGHART03

iTrader: (2)

2000 MA draw and they couldnt figure it out? Wow. Bring it down to me. I will have it fixed in no time.

RACINGHART03

iTrader: (2)

Car should have no more than 50 MA draw when all systems are at rest. The CORRECT way to find out if you have a draw is put your Multimeter in series with the negative cable. Leave the hood open and flip the latch so the alarm will arm. Arm the alarm and leave the car sit for at least 20 minutes. Recheck it. If your meter reads more than 50 MA you have an issue. about 220..you have a multiplex staying awake. Could be a bad input to the MP. Could be the HFL. I recently had a "lemon law" car my district rep shipped to me to figure out. Had a 280 MA draw at rest. Enough to kill the battery in about 3 days. Turned out to be a faulty XM unit. Was not shutting off. Replaced it and had my usual 35 or so MA draw.

ChicagoNick

I went on vacation, was gone for only 3 days and my car was DEAD when I returned.
Nothing was left on. The battery is brand new and was tested when I had Acura do my oil change a week prior.

I jump it and bring it into the dealership. They check everything out. Battery, good. 577CCA (it was rated 609cca the week before)
starter, good.
alternator, good.
battery draw while off, 22mA (.022 Amps)

Whatever drained my battery is intermittent.

skillman11

@ChicagoNick , I must have the same problem since when I test there is only 30ma draw and the battery dies. I have to carry a portable car jumper if I leave the car at the airport. Did you ever figure out the issue?

skillman11

Here is the description that says the drain is intermittent and a tutorial on how to disconnect the HFL causing the problem.

Sparky's Answers - 2006 Acura TL, Battery Goes Dead

ChicagoNick

Never found a solution. Shortly after posting, 7 years ago, I traded my TL-S in for a 2010 Mazda 3. (I know... "why would you do such a thing??) I was commuting a lot and simply needed an affordable vehicle that could take the miles and not lose a ton of value.

Fun fact: In the 7 years I've owned the Mazda, I've let it sit for WEEKS at a time in all types of Chicago weather, and have never had a dead battery. Fires up every time.

Sorry, I cant be of more use.

good luck
Nick

MrLeadFoot

I had the exact draw you have, and the battery would die. Obviously that low of a draw won't cause a battery to die, so it puzzled me to no end. I tried the HFL disconnect to no avail.

One day, while the engine was running I heard this brief sound like something being rubbed by a fan, but could detect nothing. At the same time, when I turned off the A/C with the car running, I could hear this VERY faint hissing in the car, similar to the sound your AC makes when you shut off the car with the AC running.

Turned out that the AC Clutch Relay was getting stuck on, ONLY WHEN IT WAS HOT. Even if the car was not being driven, if the ambient temps got hot, like when parked in the sun, the relay would turn on and send power to the AC compressor! I discovered this by waiting until I heard that faint hissing when the AC was turned off, then pulled the relay. Sure enough, the sound would stop. I then turned off the car and opened the door to be sure there was no power on in the car. I pulled the relay and heard a click. I put it back in and heard the click again. I took the relay in the house to look up the part number. I went back outside and did my test again, and noticed there was no problem. It was after several "experiements" that I discovered the problem was only when the relay got to a certain temp did it have problems. I knew right then and there why dealerships have not been able to pinpoint this parasitic draw problem. Like you and me, they are only seeing a low draw when the relay is NOT acting up.

I replaced the $13 relay and all is good. I can't believe that power to the AC clutch is routed in that manner. Why the heck would you want ever want power to the AC compressor when the key is off? I think someone in design made what turned out to be a BIG mistake. Typical engineer!

FWIW, that sound I had heard initially like a fan rubbing on something turned out to the AC relief valve releasing freon because the AC compressor wasn't turning off, causing too much pressure to build up, and triggering the relief valve. Weird sound, to be sure.

stm25rs

My battery drain issue was also the AC Compressor clutch relay, but my replacement was like $7 from autozone....was a freaking long drawn out process to figure that out though.

Started when my battery was dead. Got a jump, had battery tested, it was kinda week, and 4 years old, so bought a new one.

All good for a couple weeks. Battery died. Disconnected the HFL link (which I had replaced a year ago due to total failure - no battery drain, but it just wouldn't connect to phone anymore), but battery would still die.

Somehow didn't come across the AC compressor clutch relay in my searches here. Took it to an independent mechanic.

They diagnosed it as my replacement battery being bad, and put a new one in.

All good for a couple more weeks. Brought it back to mechanic. More diagnostics (free since I already paid for the first "repair") and they said "oh, looks like your ECU is failing, but we reset it and after car sat for the weekend it started up strong"

Brought car home....and died again a couple days later. I did a deeper search here, and found a different post about the relay.

Note to self - stop paying mechanics for troubleshooting. Not the first time I've had something like this happen.

MrLeadFoot

It's not the mechanics' fault, all the time. In the case of the AC Compressor relay, it is an intermittent problem that only happens under a specific circumstance (such as only when the relay gets really hot), then they likely don't see the issue because they usually check things out when the cars are cooler, like after they've sat overnight. And, they work on them indoors, too. I think many people who have had this problem, which is likely thousands of people (since relays don't last forever), don't ever find out what the problem is, the OP of this thread being one of them.

stm25rs

Yeah, I understand this was a tricky one to diagnose, so I didn't raise a shitstorm at the mechanic, or even ask for money back even though they charged me for a battery and a couple hours of diagnostic time.

Granted, the first replacement battery I got very well may have been dead by the time I brought it in, because it was a week and a half or so before I could bring the car in - I just kept using my jumper pack to start it. All those times draining the battery very well could've weakened it enough to appear dead in their initial diagnostic.

Just annoying knowing that I could've saved myself time and a good chunk of money (I also had to uber to/from work while it was in the shop) if I would've just done more research first. Nobody to blame but myself for that though.

kliqzero

Im having the same issue, please see this thread: https://acurazine.com/forums/third-g...bvious-961517/

Things I've tried:
- put in a brand new battery
- disconnected the hands-free bluetooth link
- disconnected remote start

anyone have a quick link to the map of surges/fuse? i dont have the owner manual anymore

MrLeadFoot

Yes, car batteries can easily become damaged from being drained too much, so you probably did need a new battery by the time you got the mechanic to look at it. And, don't be so hard on yourself. This was a tough bug to identify. ;-)

MrLeadFoot

Check the AC compressor relay in the fusebox under the hood. This relay proved to malfunction for me when hot, in that it kept supplying power to the ac compressor, even when the car was off. Apparently, power is routed directly to the ac compressor for some stupid reason, and the only thing preventing power to the ac compressor is when the relay shuts off the power. If something goes wrong with the relay, then power goes directly to the ac compressor, even when the car is off. It was darned hard to diagnose because when the car was relatively cool, the relay worked fine.

The ac compressor relay is the one that has the icon of a snowflake in the fuseblock diagram on the fuseblock cover. Note that there are a total of 3 relays that are the same. The other two are used for the radiator fans, and have similar looking icons in the legend. The ac compressor relay's icon is just a large snowflake, while the other relay icons also depict the radiator. If the ac compressor relay it is acting up, it's easy to tell. With the car off, pull out the relay. You'll need pliers to do so. Don't crush it with the pliers; just grip it and pull it straight out. If you hear a click down by the ac compressor, you know your relay is bad and is supplying power to the ac compressor when it shouldn't be. The click when you unplug the relay is heard because power is turned off when the relay is removed. If you plug it back in, and it clicks again, the relay is stuck and supplying power again when it shouldn't. You can verify how it's supposed to work by pulling one of the radiator fan relays and plugging it into the slot for the ac compressor relay. If the relay is good you shouldn't hear a click when plugging the relay in, or when removing it.

Note that for me, the relay only malfunctioned when it was hot. At other times, it worked fine. This is why it was hard to diagnose, and I suspect is the exact problem many owners are having, and why repair shops are not seeing an issue when they are doing their testing for the power drain...because the relay works fine when they do their tests. This relay is cheap, too, $13 for me at Autozone, so you might want to just replace it, especially if it's old, because if it is acting up only intermittently, you may never catch it at the exact moment it's acting up. I was lucky I was able to catch mine in a moment it was acting up, otherwise I would never have found this problem. You might link to this thread in your other thread so other people will know about this.

kliqzero

wow man - thanks a WHOLE lot, I will try this later tonight and get back to you.

In the meantime, do you have a link to the AC Compressor relay you mentioned, and is it easy to replace?

Thanks again!

MrLeadFoot

A relay is like a fuse. You just pull it straight out of the fuseblock. But, they usually are held in quite firmly which is why I said use pliers. Just remember that if it is an intermittent problem, you may not notice anything when you pull it, or when putting it back in. Something else you can do if you don't want to buy a new one just yet is to remove the relay and leave it out of the car for a week. If your battery stops dying, you know it was the relay. Just know that you won't have ac for the week. If it's hot where you are and you need ac, alternatively you can keep the pliers in the car, and every time you park it remove the relay. Put it back in when you drive. Again, if the battery stops dying, you know it's the relay. Below is a link to the relay I bought at Autozone. Note that the title says Blower Motor, because like I said before it is the same relay for the radiator fans. Look at Package Contents under Product Details and it says Relay AC Clutch Control. They also have their own brand with a lifetime warranty for cheaper I found out later, but it doesn't show on their website.

Santech Relay - Blower Motor MT0610 - Read 1 Reviews on Santech #MT0610

Post back if this cures your problem,because I'd like to know.

MrLeadFoot

Hey, Kliqzero, any luck with my suggestions?

SocomM4

iTrader: (2)

Alrighty guys, heres how you do it. You can also test between the posts of the fuse. Thats why theres an exposed post on each side of the fuse back.
Tape your door sensor so it thinks the door is closed, an open door triggers all kinds of stuff, so tape the sensor.
With everything off about 15 mins, verify nothing is on, and test away.Here you go.