261–270 of 515 posts
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Probably should get a brand more reliable than Audi...
I hear people say that about my BMW, and realistically the hassle of some reliability issues is nothing compared to driving the lifeless husks of cars they recommend instead. (there are reliable sports cars, but it significantly limits the pool you can select from)
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I would expect a _good_ car (no maintenance issues, new gas, newer battery) to go at least a couple months without being driven and not have any issues upon starting it up. The average car in average condition should go around a month without being driven. Anything less than that either means a battery nearing the end of its life, not getting charged, or a parasitic draw somewhere.
We have a 10 year old Honda Odyssey that we keep just for long road trips and it has gone 3-4 months without being driven with no issues. I usually do try to fire it up every 1-2 months just to make sure the battery gets a charge and to avoid long term storage issues around oil and belts and other parts that degrade.
Thanks for this timely post. I'm literally in the middle of running down a parasitic drain on my Nissan Xterra. I tracked mine down using a different method which helps when your fuses don't all have test points (and no conversion table needed). - Disconnect negative battery cable - Switch your multimeter to 10A (don't forget to swap lead ports) - Connect the multimeter in-line between the negative cable and negative…
And pro-tip if you need to go down the line past the fuse box: if you have a DC clamp-on ammeter, you can do multiple windings to 2x or 3x the current readings for smaller draws that the clamp-on might not pick up on.
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> It seems like mechanics really don't like digging into the electrical part of the car... Tell me about it. I'm in a similar boat. My audi a4 has had a parasitic draw for the past 10 years. My mechanic didn't want to take the time to address it because that sort of thing takes a serious amount of time and he's always backed up. I got out my fluke and narrowed the cause to what I believe is the comfort control unit.…
If you’re going to have to deal with it might as well get a tesla which is at least all in on the electronics and the company understands software. The dealership model has really been awful for legacy manufacturers.
I wonder if the Tesla mechanics are measurably better than the franchise dealers? I doubt it. I bet they have fancy testers, but when the tester is not showing 100% the right answer I doubt they are any use at all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably should get a brand more reliable than Audi...
I hear people say that about my BMW, and realistically the hassle of some reliability issues is nothing compared to driving the lifeless husks of cars they recommend instead. (there are reliable sports cars, but it significantly limits the pool you can select from)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hear people say that about my BMW, and realistically the hassle of some reliability issues is nothing compared to driving the lifeless husks of cars they recommend instead. (there are reliable sports cars, but it significantly limits the pool you can select from)
That's fair, but it's funny because that's how I always felt about BMWs. My buddy loves them but I always felt like they were so... sterile. Unless you are at a track or love cutting off people in traffic it feels really hard to have any fun in one.
Well this is timely. I have a parasitic draw on my NC Miata. The first mechanic just replaced the battery. The second told me it's normal for the battery to die if you don't drive it for 3 days (because "cars have computers now"). It seems like mechanics really don't like digging into the electrical part of the car... but these days that encompasses more and more of what can go wrong. Without time to dig into it myse…
>It seems like mechanics really don't like digging into the electrical part of the car. If you've ever seen a car's complete wiring harness you'll know why. It's not only because there's three gazillions of wires - they're also heavily insulated with tape that makes it a nightmare to access those wires in the first place.
But I've heard so many stories of friends paying hundreds to auto sparkies only for the problem to remain.
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> How many hours of shop time are you willing to pay for with no guarantee of a solution, and very few (if any) parts replaced? Imagine opening a computer software support business where you bring in your old proprietary binary programs that you got from who knows where, and the business is to fix bugs you've found. Maybe some really big enterprises would pay for that sort of thing. But I doubt it would be feasible f…
That actually sounds like a great business idea. Bug Hunters Extremely valuable service. I bet there'd be a lot of demand.
My father (a professional auto mechanic) took about 6 months to find a random engine shutoff during harder cornering in his Toyota, the culprit was a damaged inner insulation layer for a few wires within the wrapped wiring harness for the ECU, engine moving on the engine mounts would sometimes cause a slight harness shift and a short would cause a hard reset of the ECU. Another story I have is my computer geek friend…
This methodical approach to vehicle diagnostics is something you can see on YouTube at South Main Auto Repair https://www.youtube.com/@SouthMainAuto Eric regularly takes the viewer through the entire process including sometimes measuring electronic components with diagnostic tools that include oscilloscope functions.
Ivan has done some parasitic drain diagnosis in the last few videos, including a new custom made logger that he had sent to him for tracking drain over long duration (like overnight or a couple days).
If you like South Main Auto and you havent' seen Pone Hollow Auto Diagnistics, I think you'll like it.