Youtube video for battery drain test discharge leaks dead

[synct]

I have the typical parasitic battery discharge problem that alot of us X5 owners (2004) seem to have here. If I leave the car sitting for more than 2 days, the battery goes almost dead. I invested in a portable battery which helps, but I've gotta solve this thing. The Stealer wants over $100 to diagnose, but I think I've found a better way. On this Youtube video, the guy shows you how to use a standard volt meter inside your fuse box to find the bad device that's been taking up power when your car is off. You don't have to be an electrical engineer to do it; you just look for a high # when you touch both sides of the fuse with the probes.

Here's the video:

Automotive Repair: Locating Battery Drain Using Voltage Drop - YouTube

From another post on here by jdudjak, the potential problem parts might be:

61356923954 Rain Sensor
64116923204 Blower motor resistor (also called final stage unit)
61356961141 Light control Module

Costs go up as you go down the list. The Blower motor resistor is an easy fix and about $70 from the parts places like FCP.

I'm hoping it's not the light control module, which appears to be upwards of $400.

Anyhow, hope this helps someone.

If I could sell it, I would.

[Multibeemer]

What an amazing coincidence! My 03's battery goes stone dead if we don't drive it for two or three days, and a coworker of mine, one of the brightest people I've ever known, suggested this exact method. I was just about to post a thread asking if it works, when I stumbled into your thread! I'm definitely planning on giving this a try.

Then, of course, the real challenge is determining exactly what component in the offending circuit is exactly causing the drain, but finding the offending circuit is the first step. Thanks for posting this; I'll let everybody know how it works out.

[Multibeemer]

OK, here's my experience with the method described in the video. I started with the fuse box in the luggage area, which is behind a large panel on the right side. I quickly found it's not possible to connect a voltmeter across the fuse leads as the video describes, because the fuses are packed too tight to allow the VOM leads to reach the fuse connectors with the fuses in place. So I did the next best thing - I removed the fuses one at a time, placed the VOM on the milliamp setting, touched the leads to the now-exposed fuse connectors, and read the current that was flowing. Very simple method; much easier than going through the hassle of opening the cargo lid, lugging out the spare tire, and removing that large round control module to access the battery, and then connecting a VOM's leads between the negative terminal and ground.

Using my method, I very quickly discovered the leaky circuit - it's coming from the navigation/stereo unit. And it's a huge leak, as I expected - it pegs my ammeter on its 250 mA scale. One other fuse had a smaller drain across its leads - the one in the 7th position from the front, and it was reading about 35 mA, which is well below the 50 mA threshold. The rest of the fuse connectors showed no current flow whatsoever.

The fuses in the glove box are a different story. There is so little space to access the fuses through the opening the glove box door creates that it's very difficult to get the VOM leads to contact the fuse terminals. Plus, there are a large number of fuses, so this job would be a major pain, unless I removed the glove box door. But since I've already identified such a large parasitic leak, I think I'll first try to get it fixed, and then see how things go. As another test, I removed the fuse in the luggage area for the nav/stereo, and placed a charger on the battery. If it charges up the battery in a few hours, I'll be confident the nav/stereo is my only parasitic leak. With the fuse in place, the leak is so large that my charger never fully charges the battery.

So, does anybody have any experience with parasitic leaks caused by the stereo/navigation unit? Is this something that's likely easily fixable, or am I looking at the surely staggering cost of replacing the unit? It had been acting strangely for some time, which should have been a clue - it's station seek feature hasn't worked in a long time, forcing me to manually search for radio stations using the "function" (iirc) button on the right side of the unit. Thanks

[Multibeemer]

Well, I've had it on the charger with the nav/stereo's fuse removed for about 24 hours, and the battery still isn't fully charged , so I suspect there's another leak somewhere. Ugh. So, I've got a lot more work to do. I'll keep everybody posted, but I need to start by removing the glove box door so I can check the other fuses for additional parasitic current leaks.

[Multibeemer]

My mistake... when I checked the status of my battery charge by checking the light on the charger, I of course had to unlock the car, open the door, and pop the hood latch lever. I didn't consider that opening the door and thus turning on the interior lights might activate some electrical components, so I failed to wait a few minutes for everything to go to sleep before checking the charge status. Tonight, I waited a good 20 minutes after closing the door, and the charger indicates that the battery is fully charged. So, apparently, the nav system is the only source of my parasitic leak. So, that's good news. The bad news may be the cost of getting it fixed

[synct]

Hey, thanks for the heads up. I thought of that same problem, but havent had time yet to try it. So, thanks for trailblazing.

On my car, the charger does charge it fully. However, I've also had an AMP problem where it was crackling for a few days and now, there's no sound. The radio seems to function, and tunes to stations and the CD seems to take a disc, but again no sound. I got a multi-tester but wrong battery. So, I'll try tomorrow. Will probably end up taking out the amp/radio and getting it replaced. I'm gonna look for a radio repair service on here. If you find one let me know.

[Multibeemer]

My wife is taking the car to Best Buy on Friday, where she bought an ipod interface for the car. She suspects the battery drain problem may have started after this installation, so she wants them to check it over. I'm skeptical of her theory, but it wouldn't hurt to have them look into it, in case the fix is something simple. I'll let everyone know.

[synct]

Well, I opened up the left compartment in the rear to my chagrin. The bluetooth module (hasn't worked in while) was warm and apparently had been in water. The amp, which is located closer to the outer fender must have also gotten wet. I surmise that the bluetooth might have been draining my power, but don't know.

The question now is whether I have to replace the bluetooth to make the radio work again, or just the amp. I took out the bluetooth and the radio still doesnt work; I believe that with all those wires on it, sound probably goes through that system and I might be really screwed.

Does anyone know?

[Multibeemer]

synct,

Sorry, I don't have any insight to your question.

I have a couple of more pieces of information on my current drain situation. I unplugged the connectors to the nav DVD player behind the panel in the left rear of the cargo area, and I'm still getting the same massive current flow across the connectors of the #75 fuse. So I then removed the nav unit from the dash, and removed its connectors, one at a time, and checked for current flow. It's still there. So, the source of my current drain is NOT the nav unit itself. Any suggestions as to what to look for next? Thanks.

[anthonytexas]

So did you get this fixed eventually. I'm almost certain that it's my NAV system that's causing the drain. And now, the Bluetooth might be as well. Since I used neither anymore these days, shouldn't removing their fuses work in disabling them forever?