Tylus

Okay, I've been deployed since March and my wife has had to have neighbors jump my car 3-4 times since. She has made more of an effort to drive it lately so the battery hasn't died this month yet.

When bone stock directly from the factory the OEM battery lasted maybe 1 week if I took no special precautions. I tried turning off the radio before leaving and it would last upwards of a month sometimes.

Now, I have a Kenwood head unit that utilizes the OEM Shaker 1,000 speakers/subs and it is wired using the correct CanBus Metra harness.


The battery performance is roughly 3 days of sitting idle before going dead. I know the Shaker system has a draw somewhere. I can't prove it, and the Dealership wants to charge me $100 to "diagnose" the problem. Then tell me it's normal and keep my money.



I'm thinking about replacing that POS stock battery with a much larger 800 (minimum) CCA battery. Actually, I'm going to find the biggest damn one that will fit. Could this get me more time between idle times without it going dead?

Blacksmoke

Everyone will be guessing on this. Can't tell.

Chromeshadow

You may have just got a bad battery when you bought the car. Plus, running a car battery all the way down a few times will shorten or end it's life. You can have the battery testing at most car parts stores.
You can run a quick test on the car if you have a meter. Turn everything in the car off, close all the doors. Disconnect the positive battery cable and put the current meter in series with your battery. (Meter + goes to the positive (+) battery cable, meter - goes to the positive (+) battery post) Do not start the car, this will blow up your meter. Leave the key out of the ignition. Set the meter to measure 2A. You should have about 2 milliamps (.002 amps) with everything off. If you have more that 7 milliamps, you have a current drain. Its very easy to find, remove fuses until you read under 7 milliamps on the meter.

Riptide

FYI if you go for a Sears diehard it may not fit the battery tray snug and it will require shaving one of the little spacers down. I know mine did.

I've also had the battery drain issue and it's a tough one. Car has sat for 3 days and then been deader than a doornail. Other times it's been fine for months - started right up. Makes no sense. And in all cases no accessories were left on in the car. It just decides to do this sometime for no obvious reason.

Slick61

I had the same problem. Not sure if just turning off the radio is enough. I go the added step of turning off the Shaker system first, then power-off the radio... so far, have had no more dead battery issues.

157dB

You can put an amp meter on the system and start
pulling fuses until the draw is found.
Thats what the stealership would do for $100...
Once you drain a battery down and the plates sulfate,
that part of the batterys capacity is dead.
Batteries dont like to be stored dead.
A battery maintainer does the trick for me
during the winter storage months.

ps the OEM draw is a lot more than 7 milliamps...

The battery is just a bucket and a bigger bucket is
just a bandaid for the real problem...

pdonket

Others have given out some good advice in here for figuring out if its the battery or the systems of the car. To be honest, it definitely wouldn't hurt to get a new battery in there anyway though being that its been 4 years and the stock battery is one heap of crap. Of course do solve the real problem first, but then after that I'd say it would be new battery time.

GTRaider

The Battery Drain Test mentioned by ChromeShadow is a little more involved that what's mentioned. I've tried to find the procedure in the Ford Service Manual online but didn't have any luck. Maybe when Nuke logs on, he'll know where to find it and post a link. I think it was he who helped me when I was having an issue last year.

Make sure everything is off and the doors are closed. But you can't just take off the + terminal and hook up an Amp Gauge. You need to keep a continuous source of power to the car by using a jumper wire. The system has to remain powered to do the test. Once you do remove the terminal and have the gauge in series, you need to wait 40 minutes to allow any systems and relays to power down completely. Once this happens, you can check for the current flow - according to AllData, the current drain should be less than 50 milliamps (.050 amps). When I did mine last year, I had 26 milliamps so I knew I was OK.

If there is a higher draw than 50, you need to start pulling fuses from both fuse blocks. But remember not to open the door and turn on the dome light to check the fuses in the kick panel or you have to start all over again.

Once you pull the fuse from the offending circuit and the gauge falls below 50 milliamps, you'll know what's causing the drain.

Unless your battery is total crap, your car should last several weeks without going dead. Personally, I spent the bucks and bought an Optima Redtop Battery and haven't had any issues. I store the car during the winter but I use a Battery Tender to keep the battery fully charged for the 3 or 4 month sleep.

Chromeshadow

Ford uses a DC current clamp, they can clip it right on the battery cable. This way you do not have to worry about hurting the meter or disconnect the battery cable. If you can find a DC current clamp that has a 2A range, it will work fine. I paid $600 for mine and I plug it into a $300 DMM.
If you are using a series amp meter meter, the current must flow through the meter. You can get these for $10.00 at Walmart. I described the $10 method.

Art161

I don't think the CCA rating is relevant for your issue. The ampere-hour rating would be relevant, but if your battery is going dead every three or four days, you would probably need a battery about ten times the size of stock.

You need to find the source of the excessive drain. Also, as already said, once today's batteries are run down, they are toast. It's possible for a professional with expensive equipment to restore them, but hardly worth the bother.