Battery is dead a 3rd time.

[WranglerMan]

The rear power port is the source of your power draw if you haven't changed it to be ignition switched:

how is the rear power port a source of power draw if nothing is plugged into it and how would one set it up to not be, I’m guessing pull the fuse ?

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[Deke]

how is the rear power port a source of power draw if nothing is plugged into it and how would one set it up to not be, I’m guessing pull the fuse ?

OP said he had a dashcam plugged into it:

Only thing I have it connected to is blackvue dashcam front and back with battery pack through the rear trunk cigarette port. Which turns off if battery pack is not charged/QUOTE]

 

[WranglerMan]

OP said he had a dashcam plugged into it:

I missed that part, I just went out and looked at mine and I see what you mean on positioning as there are two ways to put the fuse in, I swapped mine to position #2 but since I don’t use power port I’m guessing it’s a non issue being in either position

 

[Jebiruph]

OP, I do not wish to even hint at insulting your intelligence, so, PLEASE don’t take it that way........

could it be possible that every now and then when you turn the Jeep off that you are leaving it in accessory mode? The reason that I ask is there was one poster here who I recall doing that, I think..... dead battery. Again, I know that it sounds stupid and impossible but I believe that one person has said that this happened to him.......

good luck with finding whatever the cause.

This happens on the automatic if you forget to put it in park before you turn it off. If you turn it off, then put it in park, it will be in accessory mode and not turned off.

 

[jeepoch]

I have 2019 Wrangler Rubicon Unlimited with under 6k miles on it. It is my daily driver, not modified. Back in November the battery died after going on vacation for 1 week and coming back to car with completely dead battery. Jumped it and drove it to dealership, they found no issues. 3 weeks later same issue happened, jumped it again and drove to dealer. They replaced both batteries, disabled the ESS too. Well here we are again 3 months later. Drove the Jeep 2 days ago, came to it today, barely any juice, the interior lights inside were flickering, the side front turn turn signals were flickering, no display on dash or uconnect. I have a dead jeep again. I am getting tired of paying for this thing if I have to spend time and effort for it work again. Any ideas what is draining this thing. Only thing I have it connected to is blackvue dashcam front and back with battery pack through the rear trunk cigarette port. Which turns off if battery pack is not charged.

This is going to be a disaster for me as I am a healthcare worker within nyc, the commute to my hospital will be an issue and with this virus situation, and many dealership closed, I have no idea what to do. Thanks

Danny,

I'm not a mechanic, just a software engineer. However I had a similar problem quite a few years back while I was still a student. The dealership could never puzzle out why my battery always drained after sitting overnight. They literally asked me to take it somewhere else. So here's what I did to solve it.

I waited for evening, (this is important as it will become obvious shortly), in order to troubleshoot the battery drain problem. I loosened the ground terminal to the battery and carefully lifted the cable so it just barely touched the terminal. Electronics 101 teaches us that any closed circuit will draw current. The amount of current depends on the source voltage and the overall circuit resistance. The higher the resistance for a given voltage the smaller the current. Refer to Ohm's Law for the complete scientific dissertation.

Well since I knew there was some mysterious drain on the battery from somewhere, I also knew there had to be some sort of closed circuit drawing current. So the idea was to try and isolate the circuit that was drawing current and thus draining the battery.

Here is where the darkness of the evening helped tremendously. By slowly lifting the ground cable from the negative battery terminal I could see a small spark (due to the current flow of the closed circuit). I then removed each fuse one at a time while lifting the cable each time. When I no longer detected any spark I knew that particular fuse was the one connected to the circuit involved.

As it turned out, this fuse was for the light bulb for the glove box. The little switch on the glove box door hinge had failed and never disconnected (opening the circuit) when the glove box was closed. Therefore the light always stayed on. Furthermore, the bulb was such a low wattage that you could never see it on while the glove box was closed. But it was a high enough wattage (low enough resistance) to drain the battery over several hours.

My hunch is that you won't find a shorted glove box lamp switch, since the JL doesn't have one, but you can likely find your active circuit in the same methodical way.

Unfortunately, the ESS dual 'aux' battery (wired in parallel to the 'main') on your JL does complicate things a little. You may have to disconnect that aux battery completely while troubleshooting.

Also modern engine controllers do not like being unplugged, even for a little bit. So you may have to deal with a few fault codes after you're finished. The good news is that all loss of power type faults should self clear once the engine is started, otherwise anyone who ever had to jumpstart would need to take their car in for service. Clearly the check engine light (CEL) does not stay set after a dead battery is recharged.

Also, you may lose other electronic settings in your radio if certain configurations are not stored in non-volitile memory, such as channel presets and such.

But I'd be more than willing to go around and reprogram all this tangential stuff if it meant gaining back a reliable vehicle. Also, think of it as an opportunity to play with your Jeep.

For what it's worth, I hope this helps.

And thank you very much for all the good work you do for helping others every day. I am humbled and glad to be able to assist you in any small way.

Jay

 

[Jebiruph]

Danny,

I'm not a mechanic, just a software engineer. However I had a similar problem quite a few years back while I was still a student. The dealership could never puzzle out why my battery always drained after sitting overnight. They literally asked me to take it somewhere else. So here's what I did to solve it.

I waited for evening, (this is important as it will become obvious shortly), in order to troubleshoot the battery drain problem. I loosened the ground terminal to the battery and carefully lifted the cable so it just barely touched the terminal. Electronics 101 teaches us that any closed circuit will draw current. The amount of current depends on the source voltage and the overall circuit resistance. The higher the resistance for a given voltage the smaller the current. Refer to Ohm's Law for the complete scientific dissertation.

Well since I knew there was some mysterious drain on the battery from somewhere, I also knew there had to be some sort of closed circuit drawing current. So the idea was to try and isolate the circuit that was drawing current and thus draining the battery.

Here is where the darkness of the evening helped tremendously. By slowly lifting the ground cable from the negative battery terminal I could see a small spark (due to the current flow of the closed circuit). I then removed each fuse one at a time while lifting the cable each time. When I no longer detected any spark I knew that particular fuse was the one connected to the circuit involved.

As it turned out, this fuse was for the light bulb for the glove box. The little switch on the glove box door hinge had failed and never disconnected (opening the circuit) when the glove box was closed. Therefore the light always stayed on. Furthermore, the bulb was such a low wattage that you could never see it on while the glove box was closed. But it was a high enough wattage (low enough resistance) to drain the battery over several hours.

My hunch is that you won't find a shorted glove box lamp switch, since the JL doesn't have one, but you can likely find your active circuit in the same methodical way.

Unfortunately, the ESS dual 'aux' battery (wired in parallel to the 'main') on your JL does complicate things a little. You may have to disconnect that aux battery completely while troubleshooting.

Also modern engine controllers do not like being unplugged, even for a little bit. So you may have to deal with a few fault codes after you're finished. The good news is that all loss of power type faults should self clear once the engine is started, otherwise anyone who ever had to jumpstart would need to take their car in for service. Clearly the check engine light (CEL) does not stay set after a dead battery is recharged.

Also, you may lose other electronic settings in your radio if certain configurations are not stored in non-volitile memory, such as channel presets and such.

But I'd be more than willing to go around and reprogram all this tangential stuff if it meant gaining back a reliable vehicle. Also, think of it as an opportunity to play with your Jeep.

For what it's worth, I hope this helps.

And thank you very much for all the good work you do for helping others every day. I am humbled and glad to be able to assist you in any small way.

Jay

The problem with this is that the JL has enough current draw normally that I get sparks when the ground cable is removed and mine can sit for weeks without draining the battery. I did use this technique to trouble shoot a battery drain with a TJ, but I hooked a meter up to read the current draw. And I had a Ranger once that would occasionally drain the battery. It had a sometimes sticking relay that I found after hearing it click on when reconnecting the battery cable.

 

[nypharm]

Appreciate all the help, picked up car from dealer yesterday. Both main and aux batteries were replaced. They were faulty according to the dealer, they could not test what draws the battery. Told me Chrysler is closed and it would take getting engineers involved to test what is causing the draw. Potentially I believe the fuse issue might fix it, will try it this weekend and see what happens. I am just happy the car started yesterday, have my blackvue dash cams disconnected. Will test the draw the myself via the 12 volt.

Anyone know how long the 12 volt in rear hold power for once car is off if the fuses are switched to turn off all power? thanks

 

[mysto]

Watch to make sure your dash goes to sleep after you leave the truck. Even though it was not in aux mode mine was staying lit and draining the battery. I pulled fuse f97 to reset the radio ( wait 10 secs then replace ) and that has fixed ti so far. I agree a short probably got it into that state but until you find it workarounds are all youve got.

Also a jump battery, or even a lawn mower battery and trickle charger, should be enough to jump it in an emergency. Jumping these is weird though because of the dual batteries, there's a thread here somewhere about ESS that explains the jumping process options.

 

[TroyBoy]

The BlackVue camera can easily drain your battery overnight if it is hooked up to constant power. There are devices that you can buy that will shut off the camera if the voltage drops too low. This is a must if connecting to constant power. I would hate to see you ruin your new batteries.

 

[nypharm]

The BlackVue camera can easily drain your battery overnight if it is hooked up to constant power. There are devices that you can buy that will shut off the camera if the voltage drops too low. This is a must if connecting to constant power. I would hate to see you ruin your new batteries.

The BlackVue camera can easily drain your battery overnight if it is hooked up to constant power. There are devices that you can buy that will shut off the camera if the voltage drops too low. This is a must if connecting to constant power. I would hate to see you ruin your new batteries.

Its connected to this https://www.blackvue.com/power-magic-battery-pack/ . The way it works is once blackvue battery pack runs out of power, the cameras turn off. It shouldn't drain battery unless fuses have 12 volt on all the time. Which was the issue.

 

[DaVikes]

@nypharm , I saw recently on Facebook where the dealer replaced a head unit in a JL because it was draining the battery. The head unit was not sleeping correctly. The dealer figured this out. Being that it's facebook, I can't find the post. Good luck with everything in NYC.

 

[Pallidun]

Instrument cluster and shift light keeps coming on and off when vehicle is parked and locked


It is killing my battery if left for a few days. Youtube link below to problem:

 

[WranglerMan]

Instrument cluster and shift light keeps coming on and off when vehicle is parked and locked


It is killing my battery if left for a few days. Youtube link below to problem:

Mine sometimes takes a few minutes to shut off completely after locking the doors but I don’t think it ever comes back on but then again I’m not out there with it either, I do remember when I first got it that the dash display after leaving the vehicle never went off and it stayed lit for almost an hour but as far as I can tell it’s not done that since but like I said it does occasionally stay lit longer than it’s supposed to and I’m not sure what causes that.

Most times after closing the door it goes out in about 30-40 secs but other times it takes 3-5 mins and there does not seem to be a pattern to this madness, my batteries have never been drained down dead from this goofy behavior, I think my JL is like an old house it just has its quirks but hey it’s Jeep thing right ...lol

 

[Pallidun]

Mine sometimes takes a few minutes to shut off completely after locking the doors but I don’t think it ever comes back on but then again I’m not out there with it either, I do remember when I first got it that the dash display after leaving the vehicle never went off and it stayed lit for almost an hour but as far as I can tell it’s not done that since but like I said it does occasionally stay lit longer than it’s supposed to and I’m not sure what causes that.

Most times after closing the door it goes out in about 30-40 secs but other times it takes 3-5 mins and there does not seem to be a pattern to this madness, my batteries have never been drained down dead from this goofy behavior, I think my JL is like an old house it just has its quirks but hey it’s Jeep thing right ...lol

thanks, bring it too Jeep next week, ill let you know how it goes.

 

[Sobehall]

Interested in what the results were … my wife’s 2019 is having the same issue and multiple friends with 2019s are changing batteries more regularly than her. I’m set on it being a 2019 issue, never dealt with this in my 2018

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