midnight12

While going to work this morning, my '05 TL failed to respond to the remote. After swearing at and shaking the remote a couple of times, I finally manually unlocked the door. However, the first thing I noticed was that none of the interior lights came on nor did the blue "glow" around the ignition and instrument cluster. Still, I tried cranking it and nothing happened--no turn over, no click, nothing. I hit the horn and nothing happened there either. It was completely dead.

My first thought was that it was the battery, but the car was only a couple of months old! So then I figured it was some other electrical problem like a short or a blown fuse. That worried me because the car is in an underground garage, so towing was going to be a nightmare.

I tried calling Roadside Assistance but the hold was too long for me. The notice was that wait times was taking so long because of the bad weather out east (it was an 800 number so I guess it was servicing all of Canada).

Anyway, I logged on this site to see if anyone else had this problem, and it sounds like a couple of people had. Both had mentioned that they had left the seat warmer thing on; however, when they mentioned it to Acura, Acura said that this couldn't be the problem because once the car is off, the seat warmer is not functioning.

Regardless, I went back to the car to see if I had left the seat warmer on, and sure enough it was. I hadn't used the car since Friday and now it was Monday.

I called Roadside Assistance again and got through and mentioned my hunch about the seat warmer. Sure enough, the girl said that it was a likely culprit. More so, when she spoke with the tow-truck driver that she was going to send over, the guy said that he's seen a few TL's that had dead batteries due to the seat warmer being left on when the car wasn't running.

Anyway, he boosted the car (the alarm came on and scared the hell out of both of us), and afterwards I drove around for a couple of hours to charge the battery.

Personally, I don't think the seat warmer being "active" is causing the problem--instead I think that when it's in the ON position, it could be creating a short-circuit that is draining the battery.

One other small thing. Before the car died, the outside temperature indicator had stopped working. It worked for about 1.5 months then stopped, just showing: ---C (remember this is Canada where we use Celsius). After this event, it started working again. Odd, huh?

This is more of an FYI--especially for my Canadian counterparts who have finally gotten blasted with Winter and who may be loving the seat warmers. Just remember to turn them off!

If anyone can comment on this, please do.

Novice

I often leave the seat heater on. I never had this problem (or dead battery). If the key was removed, this shouldn't happened anyway.

ONAGER

dome light left on? my heaters too have been left on with no issues...

also do you have anything else wired to the car? my friend hard wired his radar detecter to his car, he didnt wire it to anything ignition related so it stayed on all the time. never had an issue with it till he went to New Orleans for a week, came back and the car was dead, it has been rewired

DarkWraith33

Nonetheless... Possibly being a lil anal about it... I always make sure the heated seats are off when I get out of the car. Just in case!

JPSMAN

I have kept my seat heaters on low for the past 3 months continuously, without any battery drainage problems. I wonder if your switch may have a short in it.......

caball88

leaving the heater seats on would not drain the battery. when the ignition is off the heater seats are not working.

midnight12

I'm sure I must have left it on every once in awhile. I think this happened because it was 3 days without the car running and the temperature has been pretty cold (-15...-10 C or 5...15 F)

At any rate, I'm not too sure that I'm even convinced that this caused the drain.

I'll see tomorrow when I go to work...

jazzpicker

The seat heaters don't function while the ignition is off.
I don't think that that the batteries they are putting in the TL's are good quality because of the number of battery related posts..

The battery died in my 04 shortly after purchase and the car was completely dead, just like you described in your post. The dealership advised that the car be towed in and they replaced the battery. Everything worked fine since. I live in Florida and never use the seat heaters.

If you are having any issues with your battery, why not see if the dealership will replace yours while it is covered by the warranty and save problems later? It's probably a pos battery like mine was.

bef

I had a dead battery after not driving it for 5 days too. So now I'm paranoid so I start it up every few days if I'm not driving it. This can be a problem if I start traveling again and leave the car at the airport for a week so I'm looking at replacing the battery (it seems almost impossible to find a good 24F with a CCA >550 while there are lots of 34's with 720+ CCA) and/or getting a portable jump starter.

I'll have the dealer look at it the next time I take the TL in.

With the exception of the MDX, I've always have had problems with the OEM battery (Accord LX, Integra, CL) being very wimpy.

subinf

I havent experienced any battery problems with my TL although I do remember at the dealership a lot of the TL's had no charge in ther batteries. This might have been due to the number of people climbing in and out of the cars, but when I went to pick up my TL it looked as if half of them on the lot (maybe not that many) were on life support. Found that kind of weird at the time...although now maybe its just in their nature. I guess you find a yellow top that will fit in as a replacement...

PrimeFactor

THE EXACT SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME!!!!!

I have a 2005 TL, I got the car on November 12. The car was perfect, nothing wrong. After about 1.5 months the temperature display went to dashes (---), otherwise everything was OK. I figured I'd take it in to the dealer in a few weeks.

During the Christmas holiday the family and I went on an 8 day road trip in the minivan. When I got home, I noticed that the TL didn't light up when I opened the door. The battery was dead.

I have a battery charger, so I put it on charge overnight. The next day the battery was fine, but there seemed to be nothing that had been left on (I thought - maybe reading light was on and it is not a toggle, but a momentary contact type of switch-on).

So I got out the owner's manual and did all the right things to reactivate the audio and nav systems.

And the temperature gauge works fine now!!!!

So it has been a little under a month since the dead battery. I wonder if the temp gauge will go out again soon and then the battery will die?!

Anybody have guesses as to what could be happening? Sounds like a systematic problem if two of us had the same thing happen.

ayethetiense

for those people that have left the seat warmers on..... how long did you leave it on for?

for midnight 12, i think it was about 3 days no? anyone leave it on just as long if not even longer and not have battery problems?

TBone2004

I'm not one to say I told you so...but I told you so...I started a thread a while back about Lame batteries and I got flamed to a crisp...my battery died the first day I owned the car and then again not so long ago. I think there are definately some defective ones out there - '04 and now it sounds like '05.


oh well...something to make the dealer do if I take it in for something else.

DarkWraith33

I recall your thread... And your unneeded crispiness! I might just pick up one of those small jump starters (which are good to have anyways...)

As soon as it would die though, I'll drop the $ and go buy a good battery myself and chalk it up as a loss.

GoBig

I had the same problem. On two occasions I left the car untouched for a couple of days and the battery died. The seat heaters had nothing to do with it. Don't know what caused it.

TBone2004

Now normally I would have just gone to Sears and picked up your DieHard....for no other reason than that is what my Dad always did.


Are there better batteries these days? Or does a DieHard still work good? Or does like PepBoys carry quality batteries?

mrsteve

iTrader: (1)

Sorry to hear about the troubles, but glad to see you guys got the batteries charged back up and got on your way. Like others have stated, the seat heaters have nothing to do with it. All accessories are turned off (except the dome light) when you remove the ignition key.

Take the car to the dealership at your convenience and have it replaced under warranty.

mickey3c

Has acura been able to identify either by vehicle vin or battery who might have the defective batteries? I would want to know since we have been having sub 0 weather in the northeast and I would not want to be stuck some where on a cold winter night....

PTN

you might try Remybattery.com. that's where bought my optima yellow top for my other car. i can recommend their service and good prices.

TRK9

I think the Sears Diehard and the Honda batteries are both made by Johnson Controls, along with a few other brands.

Costco is the cheapest for batteries with the best warranties.

http://www.autobatteries.com/brands/index.asp

Jinen

I reall don't think it's a heated seats matter...i think it's more about voltage failure within the battery...i had a similar problem with my battery and i complained the dealership and they replaced my battery free of charge...so you might as well just go do that...

deandorsey

optima batteries are by far the best you can buy.

http://www.optimabatteries.com/publi...utomotive.html

they DO have one that will fit the TL, it is not listed on the site however


i had put of these in my old camaro, i still use it to jump start my other cars...it is an awesome battery.

TBone2004

Any risk of voiding Acura warranties if it is not one of "their's"?


Thanks for the site!

SouthernBoy

The problem is your outside temperture display, not your seat warmer. When this goes to flatline, apparently the ECU gets stuck in an error loop, thereby eating CPU cycles and, of course, power.

I had this happen to me last September when I went without driving the car for 5 days.

SouthernBoy

BTW, I did a bit of a writeup last fall about this very issue.. you might want to search it out. If your outside temperature display goes flatline again, either pull number 7 and/or 21 fuses (I think those are right.. your search should find this), or pull the negative battery cable for about 3-5 seconds.

While the Service Manual gives steps to reset the temperature display for accuracy, check out what I did. I works great and is quite accurate.

Again, the culprit is the temperature display going flatline.

Xpditor

I just returned from a six week sojurn in Utah. When I unlocked the TL, the doors responded and the interior lights came on as usual.

As I was not going to be driving it until the next day anyway, I threw the automatic battery charger on it to top it off. I knew the securitry system would have caused some drain for a month and a half.

When I went to bed a few hours later, it was still taking a charge at 10 amps. In the morning, it was fully charged.

I am certain I could have started the car if I had tried. The lights were not dim.

Sounds like a sporadic battery quality problem- or possibly a defective outside temperature indicator.

Next month, I will have had the TL for a year. I have 2,xxx miles on it.

mrsteve

iTrader: (1)

2,000 miles in a year! DRIVE YOUR CAR!!! lol

Pack14

My battery died BECAUSE my Outside Temperature Indication read ---F.

Repecat

Are you sure that the sensor caused the failure. My display was like that for a week and the battery is just fine.

mrsteve

iTrader: (1)

HAHAHA

How is that even possible? The temperature indicator is on only while the car is running. While the car is running power is drawn from the alternator. Once you turn the key beyond the accessory posistion no acessories (other than the clock, ECU, etc) are being delivered power. I believe both of those acessories have their own internal batteries though.

The battery failure was not related to your outside temperature indicator failing. It seems like whent he battery died, the ECU was reset once the battery was re-charged and that reset cured your temperature indicator problem.

SouthernBoy

No, y'all are wrong about the outside temperature display not being the problem, because this IS the problem. There have already been a number of postings about this very issue.

When the display goes to flatline, apparently the ECU gets stuck in an error code loop which will eat CPU cycles and, of course, electrical power. My TL has not had it's engine run since around 3:45 PM last Friday. Since I have had this problem before and watch it closely, I went out to test the battery voltage about 20 minutes ago and it read 12.48 volts and the display was working properly when I shut the engine off last Friday.

So gentlemen, it IS the outside temperature display that's the cause of battery drain (one of them for sure). Like I said, there have already been a number of reports and postings on this very issue in the past. Do a search and you'll turn them up.

bef

In the past I used to get the bigest Sears Diehard I could fit in the car but now there are more choices.

Does Optima really make a 24F size battery?
Their 34 Yellow Top is 750 CCA while the Red Top is 800 CCA. I'm hoping that the 24 is like that or larger in CCA.

OTOH, a Kirkland #1 (BCI 34) is 725 CCA for $59 which is about half the price of an Optima with the same warranty.

Sam's Club carries a Nascar XLT XDT34 for $100 that has 770 CCA, a 36 month warranty, and uses Spiral Technology (just like Optima).

Going back to the --- Outside temperature sensor, I will test this theory this week. I haven't driven the TL since Friday night. It's been 4 days so far. It's supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow so I'll continue to drive the MDX. If it isn't raining on Thursday, I'll try to start the engine. My outside temperature sensor was working on Friday so I should have no problems starting it.

Xpditor

If I hadn't taken a trip to Tampa/Daytona Beach in October, it would only have 1,000 miles on it.

I have three cars to choose from. No other drivers in the house. The Jeep gets used most often. It stays outside and is most accessible. That one has 157,000 miles on it.

The TL rolls on the weekends if it's not raining.

My previous car, a Maxima, I had for 14 years and it had only 90,000 miles when I sold it. It still looked and drove like the day I bought it new.

Dr.Murdock

I left my dome light on 2 or 3 times all night long til llate afternoon, and my battery never died. I was pretty happy.

MR1

I don't quite understand all the conversation. All of our cars are still under warranty. Take/tow the damn thing to the dealer and let them worry about it. Very difficult to determine exactly when the battery will fail sometimes, use what you already paid for. After a few times I might be motivated to buy a better battery just for convenience. I agree that it's a PITA but we can't protect ourselves from life.

Dvus555

My take away from this thread is this... if my Temp goes flat line, I have a problem. Especially if I won't be driving the car for a few days. Call in for Service ASAP.

bef

Southernboy is right!!

The TL started OK after not driving the car for over a week and I don't have the outside temperature flat line.

I guess there is no reason to change the battery (although I would have expected a larger battery for the price of this car) nor buy a portable starter after all.

Thanks for all the information.

Nodoze2004

I too had a dead battery in my ride after only 2 months of ownership (the car sat for less than 10 hours with no domes or accessories left on). I do not think these issues are related to the seat heaters (one aspect that people are overlooking is that the seat heater is pressure sensitive, so even with the car ON the heater is not on unless there is a butt in the seat), and I did not check the temp readout, so I can't say for sure if it was flat lining. One thing I can say, is that the battery was replaced (according to the dealer it had a bad cell) and the new battery does NOT have the charge indicator on it like the old one did.

Knock on wood, have not had any problems since it was replaced.

SouthernBoy

Here's how my problem occurred.

I bought the car on July 17th. On August 28, I noticed that my outside temperature display (OTD) went flatline (I reported this that same day on this sight). I strongly suspect the cause of this was suddenly stalling the car when a light changed (I was looking at something when the light changed, then went into 1st and got the clutch out too quickly for the throttle opening, thus stalling the engine). I immediately started the engine back up and took off. It was right after that when I noticed the OTD had gone flatline; perhaps I spiked it when I stalled then re-started right away.

My battery did go completely dead just 36 hours prior to leaving for vacation. You can bet I was crapping my pants about that. The TL had sat for 5 full days without having been driven, with the flatlined display. In the evenings when I would get home from work that week, I would go out and open the door to make sure the interior lights came on.. indicating my battery was still good. But that Friday evening before vacation, I went out around 10:00 and it was stone dead. I fired it up with a battery changer that has an emergency start circuit, then drove it for about 1/2 hour. Then I did a slow charge for the rest of the night and a good part of the next day. Oh, as soon as I fired the engine up with the charger, the OTD came back on.. no flatline.

Anyway, here is the link to what I reported.. you might find it interesting and helpful.

https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...light=flatline

Dafried

Sorry if I am a bit slow here, but my question to those of you experiencing temp flatline and battery failure: Is the flatline the CAUSE, or the SYMPTOM? Isn't it possible that the ecu recycling drains the battery, and the temp flatline warns you about it?

I own a service manual, but I see nothing about this.