Parasitic Drain - Not the usual suspects, but the Sunroof ??

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Hi Folks,

Just sharing....

I went through a parasitic drain test on my '05 E53 X5 3.0 150k with panoramic sunroof.

I rigged up a battery shut-off switch on the negative battery terminal and drilled small holes on either side of the switch just big enough to accept probes from my multi-meter...holes NEED to be a tight fit for good contact.. That way I can force current through my multimeter by flipping the switch...See photo.

Anyway using my multimeter set in the 10A mode, and the X5 in sleep mode after 16 minutes, I was pulling 130 milliamps..Too High!

Rather than pull fuses, I started testing for Millivolts across all the fuses in the glovebox..there should be zero voltage across the fuses..On the bottom row, I found fuse 58, 20amp for the sunroof (only) ....It was pulling 0.3 millivolts, which equates to about 90 milliamps.. I pulled fuse 58 and my multimeter showed just 40 milliamps at the Battery on sleep mode.. Perfect!

I may do some more research on the sunroof switch or module in the Spring..it's cold here now...but I was interested in just puling the sunroof fuse anyway...Given the reported problems with the Pano sunroof, I don't use it and don't want family members using it...Now they can't..

If anyone is interested in article by BMW CCA's own "Hack Mechanic" Rob Siegel (a former E53 owner) on parasitic drain testing, here it is:
https://bimmerlife.com/2023/02/06/he...rasitic-drain/