Cig Lighter Power

[reck]

Hello,

I've a 2013 Focus Estate. I made the mistake last year of leaving a camping fridge plugged in to the cig power socket in the boot and when I came to the car the next morning the car battery was completly flat.

I assumed, wrongly it seems, that when I turned off the ignition and locked the car power was also cut to the boot cig power socket.

Fast forward to today and i've purchased a mobile phone cradle that charges the phone via the front driver cig power socket. I'm hoping that this one works differently and it actually turns off when the car is locked up. Does anyone know if this is the case? If not it's going to be a pain if I have to constanly remember to unplug\plug this in each day and run the risk of forgetting and having a flat battery.

Thanks

[iantt]

Mines on all the time, just checked and locked it.

[reck]

Thanks for the confirmation Iantt. I've noticed that it has a LED near the cig plug and it stays lit even after everythings all locked up. That's pretty irritating, can't beleive Ford decided to just leave it running even when the ignition is off and the car locked.

[madmole]

My 2013 turns off about 30 mins after I lock the car

Sent from my iPad using Ford OC

[Dee_82]

mine in all the time, its actually kind helpful in someways, ive had a device spiked with an ignition on socket, got zapped as the voltage cuts out an jumps up and down, having it tied to the battery stops that from happening to some degree

[reck]

Yeah I suppose that's a benefit to having it run off the battery. Just wish it cut the power somehow after the engine has been turned off.

Madmole that sounds strange, why the 30 minute delay? I'll have to give that a try on mine and see what happens.

Cheers

[madmole]

Its not exactly 30 mins, it varies, when the computer thinks the battery draw is enough it slowly shuts down all the circuits, like the dash display, radio, cig lighters. That's on a UK 2013 model

Cig lighter starts up again the moment you unlock the car or open a door, so unless you have a lit object in it you would think it was always on

[Figgis41]

hi,,, if your leaving your phone plugged in still and in the car then its only a mater of time before you came back and the windows gone through and the phones gone,,,

if you have a usb type connection for the phone plug it in to the usb in the glove box, the phone is then out of sight and the usb shuts off 10 mins after the car.

Sorry i missed the bit about forgetting to unplug,

i tend to forget stuff in my car too, so i always have my phone fully charged, also got in to the habbit of putting jackets, jumpers etc in the boot rather than take them off when its hot and sling em on the back seat.

[reck]

It looks like you're right Madmole. Left it plugged in for around 40 minutes with everything locked up and sure enough the led went out on the charger. After that I felt confident and just left it plugged in over night and it's been fine today.

It's quote handy having an led light on the cig cable as I can exactly when the car's supplying power or not and it does appear to cut power after around 30 mins.

Thanks for info.