I had a very similar draw issue. It would kill the battery in a day, 1/2, day, a week. No pattern. Multiple shops/techs had looked at it. Multiple parts had been at it. Had the same waveform as you described. Long long story short, the alarm guys cut the shut down signal wire from the ignition switch to BCM. It was a Ford F-250. Your video brought back some PTSD. The public doesn't know the struggles that we go through!
Intermittent battery draws are the worst. Crystal clear communication with the customer and expectations are vital. Time spent is irrelevant, if the customer wants the car fixed, its going to cost $$$. Thank you.
These are the hard ones Sadel! and when you make them happened, they are not easy to be resolve. Probably that is why other techs won't bother to try. These needs a lot of time and patience! Good that you figured it out Sadel! Thank you for sharing!
I’m sorry to hear that the customer was upset about the situation, Sadel. If all your previous work was “fix it no matter what”, the customer was in the wrong for assuming that you’d have this fixed in a short period of time. He/she should have stated up front that this vehicle should be handled differently than all the others you’ve done for them.
Sadel nice video as always .I always wonder to eliminate module from waking one another . Do you depin the can high and low wires to be 100% sure . So basically module just getting power and ground . It's like eliminating all the input to the module . Like in this case , for example ,maybe a faulty wheel speed sensor is back feeding the abs unit and cause the abs unit to stay awake and causing the draw. Or another control unit that talks to the abs is keeping the abs unit awake . Thanks .
Me, personally, prefer using the amp meter, but if all you got is an amp clamp, that works too. I believe I got tricked one time with a false or incorrect reading using the amp clamp, so I tap directly into the circuit with the amp meter. The more important thing that I have always expressed, is to try and scope it or graph it, that way you can see the actual activity and not just a number. Graphing out the activity can help you determine if it's a module or not. Thank you for watching
The under hood light is going to stay on with the hood open. The under-hood light triggers the cluster to stay on. With my 2016 I ended up pulling the fuse for the underhood light. That circuit was being shorted via moisture in the large main under hood connector causing the dash circuit to activate. Sorry I do not remember the fuse or the circuit. Master fix is to clean out the main connector and make sure it is dry. Then get find some way to seal the entire connector better. I never got to that point of sealing the main connector. I just pulled the right fuse to kill the underhood light and that stopped it. So main cause was moisture in the main connector, I do remember a drive in the rain just before this started.
From a legal standpoint, you must keep the owner up to date, and annotate all phone or text conversations on the work order or notes taken during the job with the date and time stamp along with who gave additional time approval. Americans along with others around the world are looking for an excuse to get free work based on our mistakes, misguided responsibilities, and not following standard ethics. The law is there to protect the customer if the shop does not follow standard operating procedures, plain and simple, CYA. As for your diagnosis, the IR VIEWER would have gotten run around all the modules on the first go, not only the cluster and radio, there were too many fuses with a VD and the full story as to every circuit on each fuse was not fully annotated via more than one schematic which would have been a full day in itself. Will check out Part 2, thanks for all the great videos. Danger of doing so much on video and not stating that, I AM ON BREAK AND NOT CHARGING FOR THIS TIME to catch up on the video of where I am in the process up to this point. The video can be used as evidence against us. I might have mentioned to you before how another provider spent an hour teaching electronics around the fuse box and a couple circuits under the hood, doing a very poor job about the lesson, and then saying he needed to call the owner to get another hour diag time approved, straight to court if that was my vehicle with the video evidence that I was being charged for that BS lesson that was improperly being taught to beginner electricians.
I had a very similar draw issue. It would kill the battery in a day, 1/2, day, a week. No pattern. Multiple shops/techs had looked at it. Multiple parts had been at it. Had the same waveform as you described. Long long story short, the alarm guys cut the shut down signal wire from the ignition switch to BCM. It was a Ford F-250. Your video brought back some PTSD. The public doesn't know the struggles that we go through!
lol, yes this one was terrible to figure out
Sadel, the man with the plan! Thank you for taking the time to post this so that we mortals can learn. 😀
My pleasure! and hopefully you and others can learn from this one , thank you for watching
Intermittent battery draws are the worst. Crystal clear communication with the customer and expectations are vital. Time spent is irrelevant, if the customer wants the car fixed, its going to cost $$$. Thank you.
👍👍
These are the hard ones Sadel! and when you make them happened, they are not easy to be resolve. Probably that is why other techs won't bother to try. These needs a lot of time and patience! Good that you figured it out Sadel! Thank you for sharing!
Yes, this one was one of the hardest yet
I’m sorry to hear that the customer was upset about the situation, Sadel. If all your previous work was “fix it no matter what”, the customer was in the wrong for assuming that you’d have this fixed in a short period of time. He/she should have stated up front that this vehicle should be handled differently than all the others you’ve done for them.
Sadel nice video as always .I always wonder to eliminate module from waking one another . Do you depin the can high and low wires to be 100% sure . So basically module just getting power and ground . It's like eliminating all the input to the module . Like in this case , for example ,maybe a faulty wheel speed sensor is back feeding the abs unit and cause the abs unit to stay awake and causing the draw. Or another control unit that talks to the abs is keeping the abs unit awake . Thanks .
Thank you for the great information as always. How do feel about using amp clamps for parasitic draws?
Me, personally, prefer using the amp meter, but if all you got is an amp clamp, that works too. I believe I got tricked one time with a false or incorrect reading using the amp clamp, so I tap directly into the circuit with the amp meter. The more important thing that I have always expressed, is to try and scope it or graph it, that way you can see the actual activity and not just a number. Graphing out the activity can help you determine if it's a module or not. Thank you for watching
The under hood light is going to stay on with the hood open. The under-hood light triggers the cluster to stay on. With my 2016 I ended up pulling the fuse for the underhood light. That circuit was being shorted via moisture in the large main under hood connector causing the dash circuit to activate. Sorry I do not remember the fuse or the circuit. Master fix is to clean out the main connector and make sure it is dry. Then get find some way to seal the entire connector better. I never got to that point of sealing the main connector. I just pulled the right fuse to kill the underhood light and that stopped it. So main cause was moisture in the main connector, I do remember a drive in the rain just before this started.
Great diagnostic process , I have find out there is difficult to collect money from diag related to network issues or parasitic draw.
yes, very difficult to do so
Sir your first fan and viewers here❤
From a legal standpoint, you must keep the owner up to date, and annotate all phone or text conversations on the work order or notes taken during the job with the date and time stamp along with who gave additional time approval. Americans along with others around the world are looking for an excuse to get free work based on our mistakes, misguided responsibilities, and not following standard ethics. The law is there to protect the customer if the shop does not follow standard operating procedures, plain and simple, CYA.
As for your diagnosis, the IR VIEWER would have gotten run around all the modules on the first go, not only the cluster and radio, there were too many fuses with a VD and the full story as to every circuit on each fuse was not fully annotated via more than one schematic which would have been a full day in itself. Will check out Part 2, thanks for all the great videos.
Danger of doing so much on video and not stating that, I AM ON BREAK AND NOT CHARGING FOR THIS TIME to catch up on the video of where I am in the process up to this point. The video can be used as evidence against us. I might have mentioned to you before how another provider spent an hour teaching electronics around the fuse box and a couple circuits under the hood, doing a very poor job about the lesson, and then saying he needed to call the owner to get another hour diag time approved, straight to court if that was my vehicle with the video evidence that I was being charged for that BS lesson that was improperly being taught to beginner electricians.
that's a good one
Son los casos que nos gusta recibr a todos, "intermitentes" 😂
the worst ones 🤦♂️
Interesante