Hi All,

I'm taking delivery of a 2011XF Portfolio in a few days and I'm getting a little scared of this battery charge issue. In the dealer showroom they kept the cars locked with a sticker saying 'locked to prevent discharge'.

I never asked what the deal was with that, but have since read a few complaints indicating that the car needs to be locked with the key fob 30 ft away to avoid battery drain.

Is anyone familiar with this issue? Is it real or some kind of software problem? I've never heard of anything like this with any other car, and I cant imagine having to lock it in the garage every night and hide the key! Any insight would be appreciated!

 

I don't think the locking of the car by the dealer has anything to do with preventing battery discharge in normal usage. They lock the cars to prevent people from opening the doors and activating the interior lights and playing with the radio and nav system which does run down the batteries. My dealer always disconnected the battery on all the showroom cars to prevent this problem because constantly discharging and recharging the batteries ruined them.
In normal usage, you want to keep the key fobs more than 15 feet away from the car when it is garaged whether it's locked or not. When the key fobs are near it, the cars electronics "wake up" waiting for a command from the key fobs or a pull on the door handle. This causes a light drain on the battery.