So, if I took my car to the dealer and it was returned with the battery in drain mode, if it were to drain all the way to the point of dead, would that basically reset what was causing the drain?

For reference, my battery is a little more than two and a half years old and I took the car in for the fuel filler TSB on last Thursday. I picked the car up that night with no issue. Yesterday, my car was 100% dead. I put it on the trickle charger and within about 10 minutes it had enough juice to work basic functions. Will the drain now pick back up again?

 

No it wouldn't. If the battery is low, it will need to be charged. That wound be my first step. The dealer could've let it drain and didn't charge before it left. I wouldn't assume its a drain until the battery is properly charged.

 

And what should be done immediately, right now, is to disconnect the battery lead on the trunk floor to reset the system. The dealer may have accessed the OBDII port and not properly exited ...and this is the most frequent cause of battery drain (by far). Do that reset now and recharge the battery.

 

A totally drained battery is unlikely to reset the battery control manager. You will still need to disconnect the ground lead for 10 to 15 seconds. (I would do it after you recharge the battery).

 

What is the proper was to exit from OBDII access? I would like to know so when I go back to the dealer to discuss this, I am armed with good information.

 

On the upside, when pulling the cubby holder out, I found the Styrofoam piece that holds the two hook.

 

The dealer system should shut down the session properly and not cause the issue. They have never triggered it on mine. But my own code reader and the state inspection computer both cause the issue. Unfortunately it's not anything you can do to shut it down properly. Some devices do and some don't
My advice - any time something is plugged into OBD, disconnect a battery terminal for 20s. It's quick and easy to do and will save you a lot of hassle (as I can attest to!)

 

When performing the OBD reset, do you disconnect the negative terminal from the battery itself or do you disconnect the negative ground on the chassis (I read one post that mentioned this way but wanted to verify).

 

Either will work, but easiest to remove the ground where it connects to the floor pan.

On the reset...If they use SDD or IDS at the dealer, when they are done, they have to select "Close Session", before they exit the application and unplug the OBDII connector. This puts the car back in normal mode.

Many other readers, do not interact properly, and leave it "Awake', so it drains. As others have said, when using generic OBDII devices, always best to disconnect the battery (for any amount of time...actually 1 second will work usually, but some items may have capacitance and take a couple of seconds to discharge...FYI)

On the proper charging, you will likely need a full charger, as a trickle charger will not get it fully charged.

Good luck.

DC

 

Presumably every time you disconnect like this, you then have to annoyingly reset date, time etc?

 

Had my emissions test yesterday and thanks to this forum I knew what to check for afterwards. Sure enough, the hazard switch stayed on, I did the reset and all seems good. I had asked the dealer (in IL) earlier if the OBD plug for the emissions test would cause the battery issue and he said no. So don't trust the dealer.
Is the hazard switch test post OBD use an either/or thing? Can there be a battery drain from OBD use without the hazard switch being on?
Does anyone know if this extends to LR vehicles? My daughter has a Discovery that will need to have the emissions test soon and I wonder if she will have the same issue.
Thanks

 

This is interesting! When I picked my new (2nd hand) V6 S up recently, I noticed that when I locked, the hazard switch light was on. Thought that was just how it is. Kept getting "low battery" warning, every day, and assumed the battery was duff so fitted a new one. That of course entailed disconnecting the old one for a while! Now, when I lock it, the hazard light isn't illuminated! So maybe the emission test for the m.o.t just before I got it made the mistake mentioned above and the battery wasn't duff. Don't think it was great though, as after fully charging it only went to 12.65 volts, and out of the car, (I kept the old battery) disconnected it was down to 12.6 volts after less than a day. Probably not as duff as I thought though!
I'll have to keep an eye on the hazard switch light after services.

 

You should not have to do this procedure often (and perhaps never), but when you do, you only need to set the date/time and roll the windows up and down to re-calibrate...Takes a few seconds.

Likely better than having to install a new battery, or not being able to start the car

 

MIne resets from the Internet, I'm not sure which MY this started from.

 

I think MY 18 is when it began...

 

That's certainly true. Mind you, I spent hours reading the entire user manual to try and find out how to reset the time, before I found you just touch the time on the screen!

 

Please note that the red triangle will remain illuminated for 10-15 minutes after every shut-down of the engine. That is perfectly normal. It is when the triangle remains illuminated beyond that period that a battery drain is being indicated (that is not the principal purpose of that triangle, of course, but it does serve this additional function).

 

Thanks Gregory, didn't realise that.

 

The triangle remains lit normally until all of the car's systems shut down - and that period, purposely, is about 10-15 minutes (to be prepared for a restart and reuse of the car). So the triangle illumination serves as the monitor of systems activation - no illuminated triangle means that everything has gone to sleep. A triangle that remains lit beyond this period means that there are systems awake and therefore draining the battery. On the earlier XK (beautiful!) the systems did not fully shut down until about 30 minutes after the ignition was turned off and the car locked. At that point the quiescent draw (meaning that all systems have gone to sleep) is 30mA. I am not certain of the quiescent draw on the F-Type but it is probably similar or less.

 

I am beginning to believe the quality of the Jaguar/Landrover batteries are hit and miss. Mine was replaced a year ago and just went dead after sitting for two weeks.
It could be this battery was bad from day one, but was always on a maintainer except for the last two weeks. I had a new battery on the shelf (Champion w/ higher amp rating) so far so good.
Glenn