Hi, battery drain resulting in having to replace battery if car is left sitting, gone through three batteries in the past 4 years, had it at he local auto electrician, they confirmed the battery drain but when asked for an cost estimate said 'how long is a piece of string' they did not seem to know where to start. I have read that the entertaining system could be the cause and that a software update can fix it. Does anyone know of a Ford independant or a good Auto Electrician that has experience of this problem, ideally in the Tayside Area or even Scotland, would be worth travelling for someone who knew what they were doing.

23 minutes ago, mcubbin said:

asked for an cost estimate said 'how long is a piece of string'

That's quite an accurate estimate for this kind of problem.

Unless a 'good' auto-electrician gets lucky, you could be looking at very many hours of work just to find the fault. Then there will be the cost to repair the fault. I could see this easily going over £1000, and certainly a lot more if you use a Ford dealer.

Thanks for the reply, I agree could be very expensive, thats why I am looking for those that have experienced similar, it does not seem to be an uncommon problem, so perhaps there are repairers who will know where to start.

How was the battery parasitic drain measured, because it takes a good 15 to 20 minutes after the car is switched off for all the modules to shut down before any drain can be properly measured.

Are you sure that this is not just the common problem that modern cars with a smart charge system suffer from if you are only doing a relatively low mileage?

There are a good few threads on the forum about this, and the common answer seems to be to recharge the battery every month or so, or possibly reset the battery state of charge to as high as possible using Forscan with the correct connector lead.