madlad

Anyone have problems with their battery? I went to use the car yesterday and the battery was completely dead. Had to use the key to open the door. I think the problem is with the headlight auto setting...the lights don't automatically turn off and drains the battery. 2nd time this has happened. I bought a new battery 4 months ago. Fortunately, the car was in the garage both times. Tried to jump start it with my other car...no joy. AAA had to use the equivalent of three batteries to get it to turn over. How do you check to see if the 'auto' setting for the headlights is working properly? I'd prefer to have it set for no more than 1 minute after I leave.

cmasten

lights will auto shut off if you have the setting in auto on the steering wheel stalk. The amount of time is part of your personal settings. In auto they will only turn on and off if its dark enough obviously.

You can easily test the setting by just counting the time between turning the car off and closing the door and then when they shut off. Its probably set to 1-3 min, but neither of those is enough to kill a battery, the HIDs are only 35 watts each.

Try turning the auto setting off and just manually turning them off and see if the problem still persists. If so then you have another issue.

Do all of the internal lights turn off when you close the doors? they would turn off in about 15-30 seconds. If the battery is only 4 months, old you may have a short somewhere, its a 2007 but what options do you have?

madlad

I've done all that. The problem doesn't occur all the time. Both times it happened was after I parked in the garage, went into the house, and the next day it was dead. I switched the stalk to 'off' last night after AAA visited. I've tested the length of time the lights stay on after closing down and locking the doors and the time before the lights go out is reasonable for the most part, it appears to be an intermittent problem. Guess I'll check with the service rep at the dealership.

Yesterday, everything was out. I noticed it when I approached the car. Typically, the o/s mirror ground lights light up when I approach...yesterday nothing. Tried both fobs thinking it may have been a fob battery problem.

And, yes, leaving the headlights on for hours will completely drain the battery. Once I got it started, it went through a system re-boot with a caution not to turn power off while re-booting. AAA guy said another customer turned the power off while re-booting and the entire system died

madlad

Forgot to answer your question. Yes, the internal lights go off shortly after turning the car off and closing the door.

mewhee

I had a similar problem w/ a 'selective unknown' drain of my two year old Lexus brand battery overnight on more than one occasion. Had the dealer test it and it tested fine. Happened again in two more days. Dealer said they couldn't replace it under warranty due to the 'no problem' test as they had to turn in paperwork to get reimbursed from Lexus.

After this happened a total of five times, I bit the bullet and bought a new Walmart battery recommended in another forum (LS430), installed it myself -easy, and I'm no mechanic - and haven't had a problem in the three months since.

YMMV but in my case, the peace if mind in no longer wondering if I was waking up to a dead battery w/ a GHOST drain was well worth the $80. or $90. ... Good luck !

JFNash

When you step out of the car and lock the doors, give it another door lock click on the key fob. That will turn off the lights.

Back to your problem. You need to experiment a little to get to the culprit.

I would measure the battery voltage while the engine is operating (you can get the reading through the secret menu). Then I would measure it right after I shut off the engine, and couple measures few hours later.

One time I had an issue with the battery (wasn't a lexus). Every time I left the car for more than an hour, I had to jump start it. Apparently it was the broken cd changer consuming the battery.

cmasten

When I got my LS from the dealer, CPO.. they put in a new battery but didnt add water! it was good for about 3 months and then I had all kinds of issues, I replaced it and have never looked back. I would check the battery for water if the dealer put it in , I would not even trust the AAA guys to check something as obvious as water level, but worth a shot.

With a good battery, it would take a very long time to drain it to zero with 70 watts.My guess is that its a short in another area or your battery is bad. Have you actually left you lights on for hours unattended? They are so bright and the high pitched wine of the ballasts would make this challenging, but like JFNash said, if you arm the alarm it will shut everything off.

70 watts over 12volts is only a draw of about 6 amps. A typical Lexus battery that is rated at 700CA

derpie

I would love to know how to access this menu

jmcraney

Sir, you've gotten a lot of good advice here. I would like to share my opinion with you too. It seems to me that the most likely cause of your problem is that the "ignition power" was left on and that resulted in the discharge of the battery. It is very easy to do and the possibilities of how this can occur are numerous. It might be something like you gave the remote key to one of your family members to close the windows and when they got that done they didn't shut the ignition power off. Or, you went out to enter a phone number into the car's directory and forgot to shut the power off when you finished. Your car will warn you with a chime if you are walking away with the remote in your pocket and the ignition power is on, however it is easy to ignore if you don't understand the consequences. And, if you are one of those who stores their spare remote in the car then it will not warn you. The advice that you got about pressing the "lock" button on the remote twice to turn the lights off is a sure way to tell if the ignition power has been left on because it will not work if the power is on.

When you leave the ignition power on for an extended period of time the battery becomes fully discharged. The ignition power on these cars is through a latching relay and even though the battery becomes fully discharged the relay will not open. If you are able to supply enough current to get the voltage up you will see that the yellow light in the ignition button is illuminated and if the headlights were on when the battery was discharged then they will be on when the battery is restored. Normally when you "jump start" a car you connect the dead battery in parallel with a good battery and the charging system of the good battery. Then you operate the charging system for a few minutes and the dead battery gets enough of a charge from the charging system and good battery to start your car. Of course the more the "dead battery" was discharged the longer it takes to get enough of a charge to start the car. The reason that AAA had difficulty starting it in the conventional manner is because of that latching relay in the ignition power. When they were trying to start it the fully discharged battery was consuming current and because of the latching relay all of the cars electronics including the headlights (if they were in auto) were consuming current and you can't turn the ignition off until you can get the battery voltage up - a sort of Catch 22 - and with all that load it takes a very long time to develop a sufficient charge to start the car. If you find yourself in this situation, as soon as you can get the voltage up enough to turn the ignition off you should do that to speed up the process. Another way to get out of this is to disconnect the dead battery and charge it with a battery charger. However the ignition power relay remains closed and when you connect the charged battery there might be a significant arc because of the large current draw. And, batteries generate Hydrogen during their charging process so arcs can result in explosions and the spillage of the battery contents (sulfuric acid). Many battery chargers can not supply enough current to charge the battery and power the car's electronics too if the ignition power relay is closed.

derpie

Wow interesting reading, jmcraney

cmasten

Jeff is not only a scholar, he is also a gentleman! A fine addition to this site and one that has solved many of my questions and issues over the past year.

Craig B

Doesn't the car shut off after one hour if you leave the ignition on?

krzyd

Seems like it takes about an hour to turn off, it's annoying when you're trying to burn cd's to the hard drive. The real question is:

Does the light in the fridge stay on after the door is closed?

jmcraney

When I depleted my battery by leaving the ignition power on I didn't time it, I just had to deal with the results the next day. The car was two days old. Boy, did I feel dumb. Perhaps with the headlights on, the battery is depleted before the one hour timeout, if there is such a thing. When I tried to charge the battery, in place, with the battery charger that I had at the time (it had only two charge rates 2A and 6A) even at 6 Amps it would not stay on. I was able to turn the charger on and race around to the ignition switch and turn it off before the charger tripped (the current was way past 6 amps as the meter was hard against the peg). Once I got the ignition off there was not problem charging the battery at a 2A rate.

jmcraney

It never hurts to get the owners manual out.

Under a paragraph titled Auto power Off function it says: "If the vehicle is left in ACC mode for more than an hour with the shift lever in P, the engine switch will automatically turn OFF.

There is no mention of this feature for the IG-ON mode.

And under a paragraph tilted NOTICE! To prevent battery discharge it says: "Do not leave the engine switch in ACC or IG-ON mode for long periods without the engine running.

And it is note worthy to mention that the manual says "in the ACC mode some electrical components such as the audio system can be used and in the IG-ON mode all electrical components can be used."

There can be very large difference in the electrical load from ACC to IG-ON.