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ernesteng

I've just had my first encounter with unexplained battery drain on a 2010 reg S-Max (2L Petrol Turbo).

Car was last used on a Thursday afternoon, and battery was dead by Sunday morning, registering just under 6V on a meter. The lights were not left switched or left on overnight.

The AA came over, and jump-started the vehicle - the battery started charging immediately at the correct voltage with the engine running. As far as they could see, the battery was receiving charge so it is OK, and the alternator is OK as well.

After about 10 minutes the AA technician turned the engine off. As far as I could tell, the lights, radio and other electrical systems appeared to switch off when the engine was cut. He then measured the level of ambient discharge/drain from the battery.

This was where it started becoming odd. While it can take some time for the car to shut down completely, this was what was observed:

- For about 5 min, the level of discharge fluctuated at around 0.4A for about 5 minutes, but every now and then it would spike up momentarily to about 1-2A and then fall back down rapidly to around 0.4A
- After about another 3-5 min, the drain decreased steadily to 0.3A, then 0.2A and 0.1A after which measurements were stopped.

The AA technician said that a 0.1A level of drain was acceptable, and further advised me to get the electrics checked out by Ford, as he wasn't sure of what the exact problem was.


For the rest of Sunday and as of now (Monday), so far so good. The dashboard lights all go out when I lock the car door as it always had done.

1. Anyone has a clue?

2. Should I change battery to a more powerful one? I got the car at 19k miles and today it's got 27k on the clock with no problems so far. Calcium battery is rated at 590CCA, not sure about the amp-hours rating but probably around 60Ah to 65Ah.

It'll be helpful before I take the car in and end up paying money to diagnose where the problem lies - which Ford may or may not detect.

Thanks,
Ernest
 
Family member had similar problem on a C-MAX around the time of all the rain recently. Thoughts were damp connection somewhere from driving through puddle. I got them to unlock, open all doors and tailgate, close firmly, start car, turn off, exit and lock. Then we unlocked, disconnected battery, left for 15mins or so, reconnected and it's been fine since. You may want to check if there are any possible consequences of disconnecting battery for your particular model, either handbook or Google search should help. Let us know the outcome, good luck!
 
We've got an S-Max and our did this twice the year before last - and not since! I did invest in some heavy duty jump leads but not used them.

I've never used the automatic light switch since - but don't know if its linked.

My local ford dealer is about as useful as a chocolate fire guard

try here for ideas:


Ford S-MAX Owners Club website & forum

 
I've got a 04 TDCi Focus and had problems with a flat battery once.
Get it total charged up and driveable for a few minutes, job done? Come back in the morning...totally flat!
Trawled the Ford forums, and I found some crazy thing along the lines of, if the computer detects a low battery, it will deliberately drain it flat!!!
But if you drive around for 15 or 30 minutes or something, it resets into normal mode.
Which I did, no trouble since.
Weird!
 
mrs got a problem with ours, she parks once a week at a friends house to pick up our daughter , after half hour the batteries flat and won't start.
daft as it seams but its always when its parked next to the electric gates! the rf signal must interfere with its system, had this once one a site where radio coms were used all day! all the Renaults were affected and would not start, jump leads fire the car instantly…..
 
mrs got a problem with ours, she parks once a week at a friends house to pick up our daughter , after half hour the batteries flat and won't start.
daft as it seams but its always when its parked next to the electric gates! the rf signal must interfere with its system, had this once one a site where radio coms were used all day! all the Renaults were affected and would not start, jump leads fire the car instantly…..

Thats very interesting.

The first time ours failed in France the French garage said that the battery had gone (which at 6 years old didn't surprise me).

The second time it was parked at Heathrow where thers lots of RF going on!
 
the answer is obvious. alien spacecraft in close encounter with fords. they want to study mass production so they can construct a fleet of flying saucers. when they have enough, they will invade. the invasion will fail as their flying saucers will not be CE approved and so will crash.
 
the answer is obvious. alien spacecraft in close encounter with fords. they want to study mass production so they can construct a fleet of flying saucers. when they have enough, they will invade. the invasion will fail as their flying saucers will not be CE approved and so will crash.

Either you've forgotten to take your medication today or it's stopped working.
 
the demitacion ees wokring fnie.on ym 4th pnit.
 

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