Battery Drain. Parasitic Drain.

[dd31]

EDIT: it was an issue with the tazer. A new firmware was released that remedied the issue.



Battery has been randomly going dead. Sometimes i dont drive the jeep for a couple days, and its not always dead. But 3 times in the past month it has been dead in the morning.

Ive now unhooked the only aftermarket powered equipment (a trailer wiring adapter). Also, I do have a tazer and i have not unmarried it yet. Is there another typical thing i can test for? YES i have a multimeter.

Im under warranty but the current wait time to get scheduled in, and parts wait makes me more than willing to solve this myself

Thank you

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[Reinen]

What year is your Jeep? Your profile says "shopping".
How is your ESS doing? (because that will be the first thing to go if you have bad batteries)

 

[dd31]

I updated my profile. Its a 2019. 3.6 auto. Ess works and no warning lights or messages.

I forgot to mention i did the aux battery delete. I also have ess always disabled via the tazer

Last week i put in a new battery thinking it was a bad battery issue ( my battery charger wouldn't charge the AGM so i thought it was toast, but ive got a smart charger now) But i still have the draining problem this week. So thats why i pulled the fuse on my trailer wiring module, and im monitoring voltage

 

[DanFelix]

This post is interesting. The battery problems in my (all?) JL is often attributed to the parasitic drain. I would be curious as to where those drains occur.

 

[OldGuyNewJeep]

Look at the threads in the Battery Talk sub forum. If you have the 8.4” you want to be on the latest version (39.6). Some earlier version(s) had a bad draw problem.

 

[jjvincent]

im monitoring voltage

Don't do that. What you need to do is use a multimeter that can measure amps. Then unhook the positive or negative terminal and put the meter in between those. You will have to wait a bit because the modules will need to go to sleep. It's not uncommon for you to see a 2 amp draw for 5 minutes and then it drops to something like 0.5-0.7 amp (which is what most cars draw today).

 

[smokeythecat]

Don't do that. What you need to do is use a multimeter that can measure amps. Then unhook the positive or negative terminal and put the meter in between those. You will have to wait a bit because the modules will need to go to sleep. It's not uncommon for you to see a 2 amp draw for 5 minutes and then it drops to something like 0.5-0.7 amp (which is what most cars draw today).

This. I used my DMM to measure the current draw when the Jeep was not running. I got around 2 amps for maybe 30 seconds and then it settled down to 0.3 amps steady.

Not long ago I went to to start my Jeep on a Wednesday morning (I had driven the heck out of it the previous Sunday) and it was dead. I eventually figured out two things. 1) I don't actually have an auxiliary battery (I have a 3.6L automatic). 2) I could charge the battery up but when I removed the charger and checked the voltage it was steadily dropping, somewhere around 0.01 volts/sec.

Jeep road service came out and I had them take it in to the dealer. Of course, you can guess it was a defective battery and they replaced it at no charge.

 

[DanFelix]

smokeythecat: " 1) I don't actually have an auxiliary battery (I have a 3.6L automatic). "

What engine do you have? No ESS?

 

[OldBlue]

E-Torque eliminates the small auxiliary battery. It uses the e-torque battery for ESS.

 

[smokeythecat]

smokeythecat: " 1) I don't actually have an auxiliary battery (I have a 3.6L automatic). "

What engine do you have? No ESS?

What OldBlue said.

 

[dd31]

Thanks for that info! Let me know what they find.

Ive noticed a few times my dash has been "stuck" on hours after ive shut off the jeep. Ive found that locking it makes the dash finally turn off. Ive heard it could be the uconnect radio. I have the 7", so not sure if that one is problematic or not

Im still monitoring the issue. Battery hasn't been dead for a couple weeks now. Its very intermittent

 

[fuelfox4949]

just a quick update...
i got mine back from the dealer yesterday, they had to take half the dash apart but they found some wire was not hooked in and they think that may have caused the battery to random die.

warranty denied it saying i "took delivery of it like that"

i asked the dealership who were nice!
how could i have known there was a connection unhooked somewhere behind a dash you have to take half apart?
they told me to contact jeep, that repair cost me 534 bucks so now i am trying to contact jeepcares to see if they "care"

 

[garykk]

just a quick update...
i got mine back from the dealer yesterday, they had to take half the dash apart but they found some wire was not hooked in and they think that may have caused the battery to random die.

warranty denied it saying i "took delivery of it like that"

i asked the dealership who were nice!
how could i have known there was a connection unhooked somewhere behind a dash you have to take half apart?
they told me to contact jeep, that repair cost me 534 bucks so now i am trying to contact jeepcares to see if they "care"

It’s amazing that Stellantis has such morons reviewing warranty claims. That’s about the stupidest denial I’ve seen.

 

[fuelfox4949]

It’s amazing that Stellantis has such morons reviewing warranty claims. That’s about the stupidest denial I’ve seen.

i just looked at the work order and the tech wrote
"when started after sitting for 4 days in the lot the dash flickered and the radio did not light up, have seen this lately as we are getting more and more with a static discharge from the battery for no reason."
he also stated he was looking at a gateway plug?

i know that's where they hook up things to write to the cpu, i have a tazer but i have never used it for my jeep.

we use it in my buddys jeep gladiator [which i call mine also cause i am the 1 that gets to fix it] but his jeep has not had a dead battery yet.

 

[acomputernerd]

It believe is the Tazer causing the system to not shut down. I've had that happen a few times and carry a jump box just in case. What I did when it happened two weeks ago is just pull the tazer out and it all shut down properly. My initial guess is that the device is overheating.

Mine seems to randomly go into parade mode in motion as well, seems to be random and i had guessed it was overheating as well as I wheeling all day when that happens.

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