depalca

Help! My car batter was dead the other day and I think I know why. Of course the car is 4 years old and probably needs a new battery, however I think my radio is draining my battery. If I sit in the car with the radio on, I then turn the car off, take the key out and lock the doors, the radio and the dash lights are still on. I am not sure how long they stay on but I think its draining my battery. The radio use to shut off when i took the keys out of the ignition. Now, I have to manually turn off the radio. Is this a setting? Please help.

Thank You

bop11

Weird. Has anything been modified or added to the car lately. When you pull the key the radio and dash lights should go off unless you then manually turn them on (radio anyway) by pressing the volume knob. If no changes have been made to the car. electrical accessories, radar detector, extra lights etc. then I would suspect that there is a problem in the computer output board. The SCR or transistor that turns on the radio and dash lights may be shorted and not allowing the relay to turn off. The normal failure mode for these devices is shorted. Unfortunately, the outputs are part of the main processor and is expensive to change. I do not believe that the individual outputs are serviceable. May only need a program re-fresh from the dealer.
The output being shorted could easily cause the battery to discharge overnight.
Good luck.

depalca

Hey. Thanks for the input. The light on the speedometer now go off but the radio doesn't. I think it eventually goes off. I reset to factory settings. I now get a message that says please start the car or car will shutdown in 3 minutes. I assume that's a default message to start the car and not to drain the battery. Hopefully it's a setting and not a bad computer.