Same issue with my Ford Focus, jan 2019: sensor for keyless entry is only active on driver door, start-stop not functioning. Current measurement (done by a guy from 'roadside assistance') from battery when car is asleep: 70 mA. I checked the small light in the dashboard compartment, by putting my phone in (filming).

Result: light in dashboard compartment is not switching off;  the plastic pin is not 'pushed in' sufficiently. Fixed the problem by placing some layers of tape on the lid, at the position where it will push the plastic pin while closing.

I charged the battery to max again. Sensors for keyless entry working on all 4 doors, stop-start behaviour back to normal. I don't have the possibility of measuring the current again when car is sleeping. Time will tell if this did fix the problem !

 

Hi. I have a 2014 fiesta diesel titanium 1.6, with the same intermittent battery drain. It had got so bad 12 months ago (feb 2019) that I had both the alternator & the battery replaced, also updated the pcm, total cost over £700. Was advised to remove my 'hard wired' dashcam each night. Suddenly 12 months afterwards, problem recurred - bought a heavy duty booster (£120) which restarts the engine, but even after aimlessly driving for an hour to fully recharge the battery 2 days ago it is dead again this morning, although was ok yesterday!!! I ALWAYS disable the start/stop button every journey, (so it's never used), but wondering if the power mirrors could be draining the relatively new battery overnight? Not had the radio on, dashcam confined to the glovebox, no start/stop or aircon running, done everything I can but the battery is still draining! I'm disabled so this is a big issue for me. Any advice gratefully received!!

hi folks,

Suffering battery drain also. I used my clamp meter to find a range between 2.5/3A draw after car was locked. This would last until battery was around 10.3v

I have a 2014 focus st mk3 petrol with the Sony sync 1 I believe.

 

Car does not have start stop but in owners manual for fuses has start stop module. Removing this for testing my current draw disappeared. Down side was no radio, climate or dash display.

 

Problem still there but it stopped power drain. Still trying to figure out but thought id add my findings so far

A current clamp meter that reads dc amps is the best tool to find parasitic drain. Similar to this one.

It connects around the battery positive so you don't have to disconnect any wires and there is no risk of damaging your car.

Same *****  whats the resolution???

The resolution is 1mA ac and dc. Set it to dc near the battery terminal then press the zero. Connect it around the terminal to measure the dc current. 

 

I have a ford focus and I have the exact same fault that I have a current drain on the stop start module and if I remove fuse 11 in the engine compartment fuse box the drain disappears. B19_JXN did you find out what was causing this? Any ideas? The only thing I found is that the instrument cluster dials keep fluttering even with he car offf

On 3/2/2018 at 10:50 AM, Phil21185 said:

Well this is turning out to be a very one sided thread lol.

 

battery charged up overnight and charger showed full when battery was reading 13.3v at 8am this morning.  Left the battery disconnected and rechecked voltage at intervals

Checked at 9am - 13.07v

Checked at 10am - 13.05v

Checked just now (about 10.45) - 13.05v

 

This would suggest to me that the battery might be ok.  Unfortunately this means that there is indeed a parasitic drain on the car somewhere....  Anyone have any thoughts or input - it would be welcome!  I am having the same problem, drive 70 odd mile and starts ok for a couple of days but fit a few short journeys in those couple of days and battery dead.  Happened 3 times in about 3 weeks.  Trying to glean any possible minor reason as stop/start batteries are quite expensive to replace.

 

 

I bought a Ford Focus titanium automatic in October 2018.

it worked perfectly for about four months then the battery drained overnight and the car would not start. This has been a recurring problem since then rendering the car unusable due to unreliability.

the car has been in and out of the dealership frequently  for eighteen months.  All they say is that the car should be used more. I explained  that no matter how much I used it the problem persists.

The lesson is NEVER BUY A FORD

So yesterday I noticed my Sony head unit (2011 mk3 Focus) continuously ejecting a CD that wasn’t in the drive. Then sensing that there’s still a CD sitting there so trying to pull it back in. Since there was no CD, loop ensues. If I actually put a CD in its fine. Plays, ejects, all the usual. So I left a CD in thinking it was fine after not being able to diagnose it. 
 

This morning found the battery dead. Now the battery is less than a year old and I fully charged it the day before, so I’m confident it’s not that. 
 

I’ve put my meter in line to try and find this drain. It’s reading around 330mA after locking the car and sitting for some time. 
 

I’ve pulled fuses 79 (radio) and 67 (BT module) with no change to the draw. 
 

Any other common systems to watch out for?

Also is the dashboard cluster not meant to go off completely when sitting in the car with the doors unlocked but closed? I find the dash and info displays remain lit up until I lock the car. 

53 minutes ago, PatrickF said:

So yesterday I noticed my Sony head unit (2011 mk3 Focus) continuously ejecting a CD that wasn’t in the drive. Then sensing that there’s still a CD sitting there so trying to pull it back in. Since there was no CD, loop ensues. If I actually put a CD in its fine. Plays, ejects, all the usual. So I left a CD in thinking it was fine after not being able to diagnose it. 
 

This morning found the battery dead. Now the battery is less than a year old and I fully charged it the day before, so I’m confident it’s not that. 
 

I’ve put my meter in line to try and find this drain. It’s reading around 330mA after locking the car and sitting for some time. 
 

I’ve pulled fuses 79 (radio) and 67 (BT module) with no change to the draw. 
 

Any other common systems to watch out for?

Also is the dashboard cluster not meant to go off completely when sitting in the car with the doors unlocked but closed? I find the dash and info displays remain lit up until I lock the car. 

So it looks like I didn’t wait long enough. That 330mA eventually went down to 0. My amp meter probably hasn’t quite got the resolution to give me an accurate figure on the 10A side so I’ll assume it’s low enough. Now to try those two fuses again...

Hey

I have the same issue with my mk3 focus 1.6 tdci. Everything is off and battery ends up flat. Earlier in the thread someone suggested the sync module is staying on and an update would rectufy this. My questions are

1 - ive just had the engine oil changed etc after a warning..would the clearing of the warning reset the ecu and subsequently keep the module on? 

2 - how do i go about a software upgrade? 

If its easier at tjis stage to do that i will...then if it doesnt work i will go down the battery monitor/fuse pull route.

 

Many thanks!

Dave

 

Hi, while on same topic, slightly different question for someone who might be able to help.

Same issue, Ford Focus 2008 radio and small LCD screen randomly turns on, after car is turned off and goes to sleep. This random turning on can happen after half hour or 5 hours, completely random. These are symptoms I can notice, not sure what else comes on, but they'll drain my battery overnight. New battery. Until I get my multimeter and start investigating, I started removing fuses and wait for results:

Removing fuses:

108 - Accessory to cluster (audio and navigation unit) (7.5A)

or 

112 - Audio modules battery supply (15A)

leave me with no radio, but LCD comes on, with battery drain. So it looks like the radio is not the issue, only a symptom.

Removing fuse:

107 -Instrument cluster  battery supply, on-board diagnosis (10A) resulted in no drain overnight - yet.

My question is: would there be anything critical protected/controlled by this fuse, is it safe for me to drive the car, at least until I sort out the main cause? All gauges seem to be working while running, and everything (including LCD) screen shuts off once ignition removed. Will need to see whether cooling fan control still works after ignition off without this fuse.

Thank you.

Edited January 9, 20215 yr by kwanza95
pictures added

2 hours ago, kwanza95 said:

Hi, while on same topic, slightly different question for someone who might be able to help.

Same issue, Ford Focus 2008 radio and small LCD screen randomly turns on, after car is turned off and goes to sleep. This random turning on can happen after half hour or 5 hours, completely random. These are symptoms I can notice, not sure what else comes on, but they'll drain my battery overnight. New battery. Until I get my multimeter and start investigating, I started removing fuses and wait for results:

Removing fuses:

108 - Accessory to cluster (audio and navigation unit) (7.5A)

or 

112 - Audio modules battery supply (15A)

leave me with no radio, but LCD comes on, with battery drain. So it looks like the radio is not the issue, only a symptom.

Removing fuse:

107 -Instrument cluster  battery supply, on-board diagnosis (10A) resulted in no drain overnight - yet.

My question is: would there be anything critical protected/controlled by this fuse, is it safe for me to drive the car, at least until I sort out the main cause? All gauges seem to be working while running, and everything (including LCD) screen shuts off once ignition removed. Will need to see whether cooling fan control still works after ignition off without this fuse.

Thank you.

Update: with 107 removed cooling fan still spins after ignition off, however:

- airbag warning light does not illuminate upon ignition

-wide red arrow (max RPM reached) illuminates upon ignition - both gauge and listening indicate proper RPM

2 hours ago, kwanza95 said:

 

 

Hi, don't know if it's relevant, but fwiw, I've read a post recently that someone sussed that this battery drain was caused by the external temperature sensor causing the fans to run every now and again throughout the night. If that temp sensor fails, it defaults to minus something degrees. Thought I'd just mention it as this battery drain mystery isn't just confined to this forum. 

I posted a similar thread several years ago. After several years of battery problems I noticed an important feature. My radio/satnav unit sometimes failed to work for a week or two then came back to life. Normally the small red display in center of dashboard would turn off after about 30 mins but when the radio was going thro one of its switched off periods then the red display would never switch off and battery would drain over two days.

This has now got so bad and radio completely dead so I always disconnect battery after use, not too difficult as only use about once a week. It has always puzzled me how the two things could possibly be connected, but hey presto, after coming back to the forum this weekend I have had a reply (from 2 years ago) and it appears to make a lot of sense. See copy below, not a solution but makes a lot of sense. Now acting on this, will report back.

This is a well known problem.

The instrument cluster display is controlled by CANbus activity. The display is ON when the CANbus network is active. The display is OFF when the CANbus network is inactive (approximately 20 to 30 minutes after the car has been locked) and all CANbus modules go into sleep mode. 

The display not switching OFF indicates that there is a problem that causes the CANbus network to remain active and preventing the CANbus modules from entering sleep mode. In this case every single CANbus module that is installed in the car will remain constantly powered (during operation the modules draw approximately 95% more current than in sleep mode) which causes the battery to drain pretty fast.

Every single CANbus module that is installed into the car can basically develop a defect or software fault and cause the CANbus network to remain active and prevent the CANbus modules from entering sleep mode. The radio (especially the Travelpilot FX satnav system) and the Bluetooth/Voicecontrol module however are infamous for causing these issues and will be the biggest suspect. In about 90% of all cases disconnecting the radio and/or Bluetooth/Voicecontrol module solves the problem immediately.

Had this problem with my ford focus. if i left the car standing for long periods of time battery died. Was told to clean up the earth connection on. Cleaned with wire wool and its been fine since. Must have been a bad earth connection. Hope this helps.

On 3/10/2021 at 10:48 PM, Devv35 said:

Had this problem with my ford focus. if i left the car standing for long periods of time battery died. Was told to clean up the earth connection on. Cleaned with wire wool and its been fine since. Must have been a bad earth connection. Hope this helps.

I have taken the risk and bought a new battery. While taking the battery off I realised that the one fitted was loose on the negative terminal. Probably not going to fix the problem but hopefully it’s done some kind of reset and 3 days in and no problems. 
 

wish me luck.

I have this issue now and the garage have just found that its the keyless entry drivers side causing the issue. That's all I know so far but hope it can help someone  

On 8/31/2021 at 7:20 AM, Barny665 said:

I have taken the risk and bought a new battery. While taking the battery off I realised that the one fitted was loose on the negative terminal. Probably not going to fix the problem but hopefully it’s done some kind of reset and 3 days in and no problems. 
 

wish me luck.

One month in and everything going ok.

considering I took it to a garage and then an electrical specialist they didn’t really want to look at it. I just decided to change the battery and all is well, well apart from the rear screen wash, that’s the next job.

3 hours ago, Barny665 said:

I realised that the one fitted was loose on the negative terminal.

This loose negative terminal seems to have become very common recently. Not sure if it's a battery post issue or a problem with the terminal clamp, but yes that was probably the cause of your problems and a new battery was not really needed.

Recently purchased a 2012 1.6 titanium petrol focus mk3

Is there a solution as to what is causing the battery drain?

Twice I've had to jump start the vehicle, the second occasion i started the car ran for a couple of minutes no issues. Second time 20 minutes later car is dead. Thought I'd then try again in an hour's time at this point the keyfob wouldn't work and all the lighting inside the vehicle wouldn't illuminate including the cluster

Appears that something is draining the battery or could it be that the battery needs replacing, I think it's the original battery.

@Barny665 have you had any further issues since replacing the battery? Which battery did you go for?

 

3 hours ago, ash29109 said:

Recently purchased a 2012 1.6 titanium petrol focus mk3

You might like to update your profile "Mr. Ford"

It sounds to me more like you have a tired battery that needs replacing rather than any abnormal drain. I think you should start by replacing the battery with the correct size and type for your car before you start looking for problems that might not exists.

Have you checked the obvious 1st?.... battery terminal clamps. are they tight. Also the earth clamps, they tend to corrode and might need cleaning up. I think they're  under the battery tray... 🤔 

Testing is the best way to determine the problem with a parasitic electrical draw... I'm surprised no one has shared this video from @FordTechMakuloco yet but hope it helps someone.