Hi,
I have measured my car's battery drain when in standby.

I found it to be 0.15 Ampere, it sounds a bit too high, The Crossfire is known to have high battery drain as I understood but I have only found one figure of it, 0.09 Ampere.

I have detached the fuses one by one in the engine compartment. Still the fuses at the door and in the trunk left to investigate.

This is how I did it for you who find it interesting:
Chrysler Crossfire: Battery Replacement

The battery behavier in summer is that I can leave the car standby for three weeks and still get it running. In winter a few days.

/Lars

 

Most often the alarm siren shorting out from bad internal batteries. Either unplug it or replace it. It is under the cowl in front of the windshield.

 

Thanks for the information. I think my alarm siren is replaced by an aftermarket siren. It's placed in front of the car, but could of course be something wrong with that too. Anyway I shall open the cowl and see what's there, I can clean it from leafs also. But if it's the srien, shoudn't the drain current have went down when I pulled out the fuses ?

Thanks a lot.

/Lars

 

See if it goes down when you unplug it and let us know.

 

Hi,
Now after one year I took the wiper cover panel off and looked what's inside. And yes my old broken alarm siren is still there and it's connected too. I disconnected and remowed it. I haven't mesaured the current yet. Normally my car's standby current is about 0.27 Amp.

This is how I removed the cover panel and the siren alarm:

Chrysler Crossfire: Battery Replacement

/Lars

 

Service manual spec is .055 amp (55mA) or less.
There are some cautions when making that measurment. First and foremost, after connecting the meter and pulling any fuse or disconnecting anything - wait at least three minutes. Many modules will sink considerable current at first, but by the time three minutes passes, they all "go to sleep" and at that point, you get a real reading.

My Graphite ran somewhere around 19-25mA. BUt the SE is awesome - 9 mA. That's .009amp! Of course, the SE is a base model: No TPMS, no Homelink, no audio amp and I have an aftermarket JVC radio in it with the new "Low standby drain" that some modern heads offer. (JVC makes a lot of OEM radios and manufacturers insist on almost ZERO standby current.)

 

Hi Pizzaguy,
First time I measured the current I had 270mAmp, next time when I waiting longer it was 120 to 180 mAmp. I shall do one more measure now after I had remowed the alarm siren, if it goes down to 55 mAmp I think the big drain problem is solved. But can the defective battery in the alarm siren alone take 100 mAmp, that is 1 Watt. In the winter I should see the snow melt above it.

Graphite, wath kind of car was that ? And SE is that the Crossfire from 2007 ? If, then it must have some upgrade of the hardware.

I have the original radio in the car, the one with GPS. I have plans to replaced it with something more modern with SD card and Bluetooth. But hesitate because I also want the car to be original.

/Lars

 

SOme have reported 1/2 amp going to the Siren! Just sayin'. The siren is a BAD PLAYER when it comes to zapping a battery.

The Graphite was an 05 LImited, the SE is a Baser model that LOOKS like a LImited until you pay attention, it is a Base car with red paint, cool wheels, and satin side stakes and door handles, but it's a BASE roadster in disguise. My Red LImited, Graphite Limited and SE are in my sigline.

The OEM radio is cool due to the British voice in the navigation. Other than that, its an abortion of a "radio" and was so even in 2003. They were outdated back then and are only 2 channel where the amp is four channel. My SE now has a four channel JVC that blows the factory head away in every aspect except for AM reception - you can't beat the OEM in AM performance. The marine heads looks pretty "factory" as they are all, or most, that satin finish. They are also waterproof if you are runnning around in a roadster and leave the top down.

 

Now I have measured the stand by current. After a couple of minutes it goes down to 90 to 100 mAmp, earlier it was 120 mAmp after that time. Much better but far away from your stand by current. I think the stand by current was much higher during the winter, even at +5 degree Celsius I got trouble to start the engine after 3-4 days. New battery, new alternator.

Maybe I shall replace the radio this winter. A 4x4+ Watt radio will do it. Maybe problem to connect it to the rear speakers without a filter, the rear are subwoofers. Better sound and maybe I reduce the stand by current with some more mAmps.

Here is more detail, at bottom, of the measurement of the currents.

Thanks for the help !

/Lars