Parasitic draw on 12v battery

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cecilbeanie

New member
Joined
Sep 26, 2022
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1
Hi everyone, My 2013 Leaf has a reoccurring problem where the 12v batter is drained in a week or so. Battery already replaced. The dealer has diagnosed a "parasitic draw" back to the audio unit and wants to replace with a new $2800 unit, not sure the car is worth that much. This is a basic short trip commuter and since his diagnosis leads to a specific fuse. What are thoughts on just removing the fuse? Any problems that might be associated with that?

Thanks in advance
 
Obviously you will lose all the functions of the audio and whatever other circuits are powered by that circuit. If it's only the audio on that fuse (quite possible) and you don't care about the audio then removing the fuse should fix the problem and cause no other side effects.

It might be possible the lack of communications with the radio will get logged by the car's central computer but I don't think it would generate a CEL so no worries there either.
 
It is probably the fuse that supplies power for the memory and other functions in the audio unit while the car is off. If so, then the unit will still function when the car is on, but will start up as if the battery was disconnected for a while. It may set some DTC's (diagnostic trouble codes) for the audio unit, but should not cause any other issues and will not trigger the MIL (malfunction indicator light).

Since you note replacement cost as $2800, I assume it is the navigation system in an SV or SL. If so, you might be able to eliminate the parasitic draw by disconnecting and removing the cellular modem that is probably no longer able to communicate (probably 2G or 3G modem instead of 4G LTE on current cars).
 
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