Rant: A 2017 Ford Escape with a weird electrical drain that took three days to find

Customer complaint was a dead battery every morning. Hooked up the ammeter, saw a 0.3 amp draw, which is too high. Started pulling fuses one by one, but the draw never dropped. Turned out the problem was a bad control module for the power liftgate. It was staying awake and talking to the network even with the car off. The module itself wasn't on a fuse we could pull easily, so we had to trace the wiring diagram. Has anyone else run into a parasitic drain that didn't show up on the fuse box check?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_avery5d ago

Was the module powered directly from the battery feed? I've seen that before where a constant hot line bypasses the fuse box entirely, making the usual checks useless. It turns a simple job into a real headache.

kai_lee355d ago

Ugh, tell me about it. Had that happen on an old truck's radio module. Traced a drain for hours. It was wired straight to the battery with no fuse in sight. Makes you want to pull your hair out. Those hidden power lines are the worst.