58 plate Focus mk2.5 Battery Drain/ Locking Issue?

[coachpotato]

There’s been a drain issue on my Focus for a while and much delving and searching the web has narrowed down the issue….I think!
Originally turning the car off and locking the doors indicated a drain of 710mA for about 30 seconds, then it would drop to around 610mA.

After period of around 20 minutes, the instrument display would go off and the current drain would drop to 340mA. And that would be it.

Removing fuses in the Engine compartment fuse box showed that the issue was on Fuse 3, Passenger JB supply 2.

Removing fuses from the drop down board in the passenger footwell showed a drop of around 100mA on the car audio module fuse, F112.

So I’ve removed that for now.

There was a 40mA drain on the cigar lighter fuse F109, but that was because I have a plug in voltmeter in there, so I removed that and the steady current when the car had shut down was 200/210mA.

All the fuses have been removed one by one then replaced, and the only other one that affects the reading is F107, which is the instrument cluster supply, and removing this and replacing it resets the current back to the “awake” current of 610mA.

The other issue I have is that the doors “buzz” loudly on the second deadlock press and I was wondering if this would affect the current draw, even though the car appears to go “asleep” when the instrument cluster goes out after 20 minutes?

Could it be the fault on the doors is maintaining the current drain in some way?
When I pull fuses F118, F120, F133 & F134, all relating to the door modules and central locking,  there’s no discernible change to the current reading.

Cheers for any help.

[unofix]

Hello David, you have already carried out much of the exploratory work in tracking down the parasitic current draw. 👍

My first thought would be to disregard the door lock modules, as if these remain active the current draw would be very noticeable. I think your next stage of testing is to use FORScan and monitor the HS and MS Canbus and see if they are remaining active after the car has gone to sleep. Remember it can take a full 30 minutes before all activity on the Canbus stops even in normal conditions. 

[coachpotato]

Thanks for the reply Unofix. I’ve got a FORSCAN disk somewhere and an OBDII scanner that I can connect to a laptop, although the last time I had it working was a while ago!
I’ll try it and see if I can spot anything.👍

[unofix]

Download FORScan (it's free for use on laptop): https://forscan.org/download.html

ELM327(modified) connecting cable: https://tunnelrat-electronics.fwscart.com/USB_Modified_with_switch_ELM327/p4541936_17045457.aspx

[coachpotato]

I downloaded the latest version of Forscan and ran it on the vehicle.

There were a few DTC's :-

PCM P1260-61

ABS U2023-A0, B1318-A0,B1317-A0.

RCM B1318-20

IC     B1601-70, U1900-20, B2103-20, U2197-20, U2200-20, B1600-20, C1750-20 & B1318-20.

These all cleared after a reset and haven't returned so far.

The attached .txt file is what was indicated on the log.

Can I ask, how and where can I monitor the MS and HS Canbus modules if the ignition is required to be on when the program is running? As you might have guessed, I'm only familiar with the basics on Forscan sorry.  

InitialCheck.txt

[coachpotato]

Just a correction, in the original post I mentioned the issue was on F3 in the Engine JB, it is in fact on F4. This feeds part of the Passenger JB fuse board and is direct to the Audio Module fuse F112 and the Cigar Lighter fuse F109 mentioned in previous posts. I gleaned this from the circuit diagrams for the Focus mk2.5 kindly posted by Preee.

[unofix]

Have a watch of the Youtube videos by SY diagnostics and you will soon learn all about Canbus (and FORScan).

https://www.youtube.com/c/SkodaYoda/search?query=Canbus

[coachpotato]

I will do.

Thanks for your help again!

[coachpotato]

Update.

Still looking through the videos on YouTube and finding them very informative.

Pulling the Audio module fuse has definitely reduced the drain as the car started fine this morning after having been lying dormant over the weekend, but I still want to get to the bottom of the 200mA drain.

Will keep you updated!

 

[unofix]

59 minutes ago, coachpotato said:

I still want to get to the bottom of the 200mA drain.

It is quite possible that this is the classic Instrument Cluster fault that many cars around that age have. Anything/module that does not fully enter sleep mode after 30 minutes will keep the canbus alive which in turn keeps other modules awake.

Have you had any problems with the instrument cluster like random warnings ?

[coachpotato]

No. Not recently, but when I first got the car, I had random “safe mode” and other errors which led to me taking out the instrument panel and re-soldering the multi-pin socket. After I’d done that it didn’t happen again.

If I’m being honest though, the battery drain has possibly been around since then but as I used the car every day, I was likely putting a charge back into the battery.

I retired last November and it’s been noticeable since then that when the car is left for 3 or 4 days the battery flattens. It’s seen off one battery that eventually wouldn’t charge up enough to turn the car over.

I suppose I should check the instrument panel again for shorts?

[unofix]

1 hour ago, coachpotato said:

I suppose I should check the instrument panel again for shorts?

Yes it would be worth rechecking. It could even be that other dry joints have now occurred. Any high resistance in the solder joints can be enough to disrupt the canbus signals and cause spurious spikes on the network.

[DaveT70]

Sorry to jump in so late, but have you checked for water ingress damage on the BCM circuit board?

[coachpotato]

Sorry for the late reply DaveT70, no I haven’t checked recently, but I will do.

Was ok the last time I had trouble similar to this.

Had a mad couple of days so not been able to spend as much time as I’d hoped on the car.

Again, there hasn’t been a problem starting, and battery voltage is being indicated around 12.1/12.3v when checked before starting, but I really need to see if the drain is still there and how big it is.

I’ve bought a new lead, one of the vLinker ones, and that connects fine and I have been able to see there’s no further fault codes occurred. I’ve been able to do self tests on the modules available, and they all passed, so I now need to get the multimeter in line and check the drain current status as the display goes out again.

Will report back ASAP.

Thanks for your help.

 

 

[coachpotato]

I don’t have a BCM listed so I expect that it’ll be the GEM as it’s a mk2.5? 
I have PCM, OBD2, ABS & IC listed on the HSCan and RCM & GEM on MSCan.

There’s no apparent water ingress to any of the plugs etc. on the drop down fuse unit under the glove box on the passenger side, I sprayed the plugs and sockets with Servisol before reconnecting them.

Before I start disconnecting battery leads and placing multimeters in series to monitor the current, can I ask a couple of things.

I’m probably missing something obvious here, so apologies if that’s the case, but how will the car/modules go into “sleep” mode if I have my pc connected and the ignition on, as FORSCAN requests, if I have to have the program running to find any faults?

To monitor if the modules have shut down, where exactly would I look in FORSCAN if I turn off the ignition, lock the car and wait for the display to go off? 

[coachpotato]

Right, it’s been a month since I last posted on this issue, three weeks of which were spent in South Africa! Just before going I removed the instrument cluster and resoldered all the socket terminals then replaced it. I made sure the battery was fully charged and I asked my daughter to turn the car over once in a while why I was away. When I got back I asked how many times she had done that. Turns out she’d forgotten to do it. So when I went out to the car and heard it respond to the unlock quite crisply, I was surprised, I was also not expecting a voltage level of 11.8v on the plug in voltmeter but I was even more surprised when it started first time!
Admittedly, the radio is still disconnected, as that’s where the biggest drain was originally, but I’ve gone out a few times in the last week and it’s started fine.

Haven’t checked the drain when shut down yet, but obviously something has changed to allow the battery to retain enough to enable “normal” starting. I might reconnect the radio to see if whatever has changed will allow the radio to “ sleep” and of course with cooler weather and more use of lights, heaters etc. there’ll be more pressure on the battery and recharging.

Again, I’ll keep you posted.

[coachpotato]

This’ll be the last post on this topic. I’ve replaced the radio fuse (F112) and checked the current drain, after the car has shut down, and the drain is down to around 130mA. There’s no issues starting the car after a 3 or 4 day delay as there had been previously, so I’m making the assumption that the re-solder  job on the instrument cluster I did has cleared some kind of short circuit that was causing the current to remain high.

There are no DTC codes and a run through of tests on Forscan gives no problems.

Thanks to Unofix and DaveT20 for their cooperation and input on this, hope it’s able to assist others in the future.

[coachpotato]

Guess what. After little problem with car, the fault reoccurred!
Dropping the fuse out (112) and recharging the battery gives me no problems starting, as soon as the fuse is replaced the battery drains.

I notice another poster has indicated the 6000cd head can have an issue where the radio goes off, but it goes into mute mode, so keeping the radio on.

You don’t know this as when the car restarts, there’s no issue with the radio.

All I need is a radio, not bothered about cd’s or such, but there’s none I can find without spending £120+ for an Android.

[Hooded]

On 9/15/2022 at 11:19 PM, unofix said:

Download FORScan (it's free for use on laptop): https://forscan.org/download.html

ELM327(modified) connecting cable: https://tunnelrat-electronics.fwscart.com/USB_Modified_with_switch_ELM327/p4541936_17045457.aspx

Sorry to gatecrash the thread, .... is this the correct cable to use with FORScan for both my cars?

2007 Focus MK2

2011 Focus MK2.5

Cheers 

 

[unofix]

Yes that will be fine. 

Or you can use the new vLinker FS cable 

[MK2.5Hippo]

Any updates OP? I have a similar issue where when all my fuses are unplugged, and only the C96 - Front 1 plugged into the GEM, i have a 130mA drain. This drain should be down to 50mA. 

You seem to be on the same track as me with a similar car. From what I've seen, the GEM module itself could be to blame.