I'm back with another issue!

[Shawn855]

Miss me? Just kidding. So this morning i went to start my 2016 dodge journey sxt with 88,000kms on it, and the battery was completely dead. Battery is only 6 months old. Charged it right up and tested for parasitic draw. When testing, I quickly saw the 500 milliamp draw. When removing the ABS Valve fuse, the draw shot down to 60 milliamps. 

 

Any ideas on what this could be? In my head I'm thinking TIPM, and PCM. Both are expensive naturally. 

 

 

[John/Horace]

Need to do more trouble shooting.  How long was the ignition off when you got your load reading?

Are you having any other odd symptoms?  I think tipm was more of an issue with early model Journeys.

 

What brand of battery was put in 6 months ago. Is it at least 600 cold cranking amps.

[Shawn855]

Ignition was off for an hour. No other odd symptoms. Walmart brand battery. Don't remember the CCA but I remember I did my research back then and ensured it was more than the stock battery at the time. Battery itself was tested at a shop and it passed. Alternator fine as well. Not going to start blaming battery when I see it clear as day that abs fuse is drawing 500 milliamps, when the norm is 50 - 80. (Last I heard, dodge spec was 35 milliamps).

[probak118]

Ok I am completely ignorant on this so now am curious. I assume the ABS valve should only be active while vehicle is in operation and wheels turning ? Meaning the draw is due to a circuit staying closed ?

[Shawn855]

From my very limited knowledge in this area, what I can recall is that the TIPM controls what electronics go to sleep when the vehicle is turned off. If I pull that abs fuse, and the draw goes down, but then reinsert the fuse, the draw stays down. If I restart the draw test, the fuse is back to drawing 500 milliamps. 

 

My buddy is a mechanic at a local shop and said he changed a lot of TIPM, as well as PCM and when I did the research, there's another board with over 100 posts about the issue I'm facing. Some were narrowed down to the Bluetooth module, and some to the radio, while others was the PCM and others the TIPM.  

 

Edit: acronym mistakes, because it's 7:50am

Edited February 13, 2021 by Shawn855

[John/Horace]

My f150 had a weird parasitic draw issue a few years ago. The go to sleep function can be tricky, on the Ford the drivers door has to be closed to trigger the full shut down sequence.  The 2009 F150 generation had a lot of dead battery issues.
 

It can be hard to isolate where the draw is from without measuring right at the fuse contacts. Although I think abs would be isolated there could be problems with pedal brake light switch draining battery. Search site there was a recent posting about it. 
Battery measurement will be entire fuse box. I have a fuse draw circuit tester which is good for isolating issues. Maybe borrow one, tipm or pcm are expensive  items. 

 

Wallmart batteries not that bad in my experience, I have used them before.

 

 

 

[OhareFred]

Hey John, where did you get that mx201?  I’d like to look into it....?

[Shawn855]

Yeah I saw the mention about the brake pedal switch. If it were that, wouldn't the brake lights be on while the vehicle is turned off? 

 

That fuse draw circuit tester looks like a great tool to test with, but since I already know that pulling that specific fuse reduces the draw, I'd say that using that tool would be redundant in my case. I'll probably still end up buying one however lol. 

[John/Horace]

19 hours ago, OhareFred said:

Hey John, where did you get that mx201?  I’d like to look into it....?

 

We have a place that is like your Harbour Freight but smaller with less selection. It’s called Princess Auto, lots of surplus stuff generally good prices on cheaper China tools. 
I think I paid around $35 around 4 yrs ago for it. Great trouble shooting tool.

 

The guy with brake light switch issue said they were on during problem. Not sure how much both lights draw when fully on, worth looking at for power draw anyway in case only partly engaged. Is there any aftermarket stuff wired in to car that might have been added to abs circuit? Some remote start units use a brake signal.

With our remote battery terminals I would still try to test right at fuse. Remote terminals aren’t the same as testing right on the battery terminals, there is extra power drop and grounding issues.
Mark abs relay under hood and swap it’s location with another identical relay. Bad coil in relay another possibility.

[OhareFred]

ESI 306B 30 Amp Fuse Buddy ATC Tester

 

 

Found this on Amazon  and purchased it. Was $21.00 USD so I figured I’d try it out.  Thanks for the tip John!

[Shawn855]

Fuse tester wouldn't be accurate in my current situation, because as mentioned above if I remove the fuse and reinsert it, the drain stops until I restart the draw test.

 

So removing the fuse, and inserting the tester would show zero drainage, thus leading to more confusion. 

 

That's why I was kinda thinking PCM as the issue. If it was the TIPM, I would think that the drain would continue after reinserting the fuse during the testing.

 

But as it is now it's like it's forgetting to put abs valve to sleep after engine turns off. But then we remove the fuse, reinsert it and it remains off, reducing the amp draw from 500 milliamps to 60 or less milliamps. 

 

I could just pull the fuse but then I'd be screwed if I got into a major accident and they saw the fuse was pulled. 

[Hankster]

Try unplugging the actual abs module. Salty water and the green crusties might have had there way with it. May even be one of the sensors that connect to it. I would continue to unplug things until you find the root cause.

Hank

[Shawn855]

Update: so there's no parasitic draw. I simply wasnt waiting long enough for the abs module to be put to sleep. Normal draw on battery is 10 milliamps now which is well within spec. 

 

Decided to swap walmart battery to my old battery for testing purposes. Vehicle would start everyday and it seemed like that was the cause. However vehicle sat for 2 full days this weekend and vehicle would not start. Voltage 11.55 volts. Still could be a battery issue (Walmart battery faulty/bad connection, old battery weak) but here's the differences between both batteries and testing phases:

 

Walmart battery would die overnight sometimes and when it did, the dash would be flickering like crazy, and the relays under the hood would be chattering like crazy, on and off until I  disconnect battery. 

 

Old battery was fine everyday but died after two days of sitting. But when it would die, the dash would be fine. No flashing or flickering or chattering relays. It would simply not start, and it would show the low voltage indicator on the dash. 

 

Alternator charging at 14.70 volts btw. 

 

This tells me it could still be a battery issue. I swapped the old Walmart battery for a new one and I'll be throwing it in the dodge when I get some time. Probably next Thursday. 

 

Couple thing I did as well for testing purposes: disconnected my rust prevention module. And disconnected my dashcam. 

[deejizzle]

i would try an AGM battery if thats the case. they should be preforming better in cold with better CCAs too. havent done it myself but if you are buying a new battery again (current batteries not under warranty) thats maybe where i would start if you feel confident on your diagnosis (seems about right to me). with the ON cold snap (especially down here in SW-ON) ive already had to help a random fellow 2.4 journey owner with bumping their car this winter.

[5rebel9]

Do you have the "big screen" audio with nav/bluetooth/ and all that stuff?   I've heard many cases of such not shutting down properly and killing batteries in short (2-3 days). Also you really should have the batteries properly load tested with meter that shops and parts stores use to properly determine battery health. Most will do this for FREE.

[Shawn855]

Big screen yes. I'll try removing the bluetooth and radio fuses to eliminate them as probable causes. 

 

The battery has already been load tested but the shop had mentioned that batteries that pass these tests can certainly still be bad. 

 

Random thought: My alternator is charging my battery at 14.70 - 14.75v. Is that not too high? Therefore it's overcharging my batteries, thus killing them? 

 

 

[5rebel9]

Nope, that's a proper alternator output.   Best wat to load test is at "normal" state, NOT fully charged and the test.

[Shawn855]

I'm thinking battery as well, however i'm still not sold on the alternator being fine. My buddy had this exact same issue happen to him and it was happening at random times as well and it was his alternator draining the battery on random occasions while vehicle was off. I also found a thread where a few journey owners had the same thing happen to them. I decided to do an AC voltage test to see if the alternator's regulator or diodes may be faulty. Typically this is done while the vehicle is running, setting your multimeter to ACV, and putting the positive lead on the positive terminal on the alternator, and the negative lead on a ground and the theory goes that if you see anything more than 0.5v, then the alternator is at fault. Now, i don't have easy access to the alternator due to it being winter, so i did it through less traditional means: I connected the leads to the battery jumping terminals (I've seen a few sites mentioning you can do it this way as well, but i'm still not 100% it's correct and therefore my findings are inconclusive so far). Anyhoo, when connecting the ACV leads to the battery jumping terminals, the voltage showed 31.6v. Which is way past the allowed 0.5v. 

 

I'll still be changing the battery this week, but if it's still draining i'll be looking into doing the alternator test properly - straight from the alternator. Your thoughts? Oh and also here's this week's voltage drops from the vehicle being parked for a few days:
Parked Vehicle sunday at 6pm after driving and charging battery while driving.

8pm:12.47v

10pm:12.45v

 

Monday:

7:15am:12.41v

11:15am:12.39v

4:30pm:12.38v

6:15pm:12.38v

9:00pm:12.37v

 

Tuesday:

7:30am: 12.35v

 

Looking at this, the drain goes from 0.02 volts every 2 - 3 hrs, down to about 0.02v every 9+ hours. I know older batteries lose charge over time so it could be the battery is still settling down the whatever voltage it can actually hold. (Battery is 5 years old, so i'd guess it would eventually settle at 12.25v). Though it was still showing a slow drain over time, this is much better results when compared to my random decrease to 11.5v last sunday at 4:30pm after sitting for about the same amount of time, and all I did was:

-unplug dashcam

-disconnect rust prevention module

-set interior lights to never turn on (in case they were randomly turning on during the night)

 

So it could be any of these things, or none of these things if it's a bad alternator or bad battery. I'll be throwing in the replacement new walmart battery tomorrow and restart my testing over a few days to see if it's still slowly losing charge. 

Edited February 23, 2021 by Shawn855
Poor Grammar

[5rebel9]

Well, voltage readings are a FAR cry from what you posted of 14.5v earlier! AND in your area, 5 years on a battery is a LONG time and would definitely be on the worn out side. 

   Do what you want, it's your vehicle......

[Shawn855]

What? I never said the battery was 14.5v......i said it was at 14.7 while vehicle was running, when checking the alternator charging output...

 

These tests are all done with the vehicle off and parked, except for the alternator AC voltage test with vehicle on. 

Edited February 23, 2021 by Shawn855
Grammar

[5rebel9]

17 minutes ago, Shawn855 said:

What? I never said the battery was 14.5v......i said it was at 14.7 while vehicle was running, when checking the alternator charging output...

 

These tests are all done with the vehicle off and parked, except for the alternator AC voltage test with vehicle on. 

Sorry, I must not had enough coffee in me yet that I missed that.  But I still believe the alternator to be OK along with the rest of charging system controls( the ECM also plays into charge rates). I do believe the battery to be the culprit being 5 tears old. As for my posting of "do what you want"....I think you have just gone a long and overly involved process in reaching your same conclusion.

[OhareFred]

On my 09 my original battery lasted 5 years, the replacement lasted 4.  The original was fine until it just up and died overnight, the replacement just got weaker, sometimes having to turn the key twice to get the car to crank.  Your voltages don’t look that bad, but why chance it.  If you have someplace warm to swap batteries, might be a good idea.  If not, maybe a trickle charger of carry a booster with you until you can swap the batteries. ?

Edited February 23, 2021 by OhareFred

[Shawn855]

20 minutes ago, 5rebel9 said:

Sorry, I must not had enough coffee in me yet that I missed that.  But I still believe the alternator to be OK along with the rest of charging system controls( the ECM also plays into charge rates). I do believe the battery to be the culprit being 5 tears old. As for my posting of "do what you want"....I think you have just gone a long and overly involved process in reaching your same conclusion.

 

It's true - I agree that I'm perhaps overanalyzing everything ahead of time. It's moreso of a "I can't change the battery yet, therefore i'm trying to gather as much information as possible now, so that if the drain still happens with the new battery, I'll be ready for the next possible solution". Blame my computer job for this mentality. I'll stop testing for now until I change the battery lol sorry.

[Shawn855]

12 minutes ago, Locosiete said:

Well not to throw gas on fire but if you don't think you can change battery for some time and think the voltage is fluctuating randomly you could hook up a simple 12 volt gauge and run it into the cab so while driving you can see if voltage goes from charging to discharging to confirm your theory.

 

But... if it was discharging while driving it would be low or dead by the time you got to your location and you would get the low power saver warning light while driving. Which i don't believe you had mentioned before. So would rule out alternator not charging correctly. 

 

As fsr as a parasitic drain from the voltage and times you posted to me that sounds more like a weak battery not holding a charge vs being drained by something.

One option to test this if replacing battery is not an option for some time would be disconnect positive connection at connection in engine compartment and wrap cable with rubber glove so doesn't ground out. Check voltage and then recheck following morning and if weak battery it will drain with no connection. 

Downside is you loose all radio settings and may run a little rough while computer resets. But if you disconnect positive then you know there is nothing drawing from it. Or can disconnect ground if you can get them all lol

 

If it is indeed a faulty alternator, the discharging of the battery from the alternator happens while the vehicle is off, not while being driven.

 

But yes, i have a list of things to try if its not the battery hahah. I'll see if someone can watch my little man tonight while I quickly change the battery so that I can monitor any voltage drop overnight. If it drops, on to the next step! 

[Shawn855]

16 minutes ago, Locosiete said:

Well for your sake hope it is not something more then a tired battery. Parasitic drain can sometimes be a major pain to narrow down and then resolve. 

 

Not saying alternator can't discharge while off but personally i have never had that or known it to happen. Not saying it can't but just never come across that myself.

The smarter they make cars the more potential issues it can create. 

I also have a 97 cadillac, yes i own too many cars lol, that the ABS Module would cycle with car off killing battery. That was very annoying to figure out but nevertheless it was a new one to me.

That's also a valid theory. Again, it took a few minutes for my ABS valve to go to sleep. Once i saw it went to sleep, i concluded my parasitic draw test. Perhaps if i would have waited another half hour or so, the abs module would have kicked back on again, then off again, drawing voltage. I'll add "remove abs valve fuse" to my list of possible solutions. Whatever drain this is, it's not happening consistently. 

 

I found a list of possible solutions online that somebody created when he was facing the same issue. His solution was the TIPM btw. I'll upload it now for reference for those who may be going through the same thing.