Catanzaro

Here is the history of this car.
1 Owner from 1999
The car was purchased in 2019
The car never had any issues for the first 10 years
Every few years the battery was replaced
The last battery was replaced about a year ago
The car went to the dealer and independent mechanics and they could not find the drain on the car
The car went through 6 batteries in over 8 years
No check engine lights on
The car has LoJack. I tried to have it removed during COVID and they would not come out. Not functional and may be the cause.
The previous owner really never drove the car, especially in the winter here in NJ. I always suspected that because of this, the battery never fully stayed charged.

Now, let's skip ahead. In the summer, you can leave the car outside and not start for a week or even longer and somehow we are fine. If you leave a light on overnight, or the door open, the battery drains quickly. Hit or miss in the summer.

Now, in the winter, there are cold nights that the next morning, it starts right up. Then sometimes, with both heated seats on, the car charger in the cigarette lighter on, the lights, wipers, and both defrosters, at idle the battery light comes on (huge drain). Hit the gas and everything goes away. I checked all the grounds, even removed the negative battery terminal sanded down, and put a good connection. Most of the problems occur when the temperatures drop below 35 degrees overnight. I know that batteries have a lot of drain during cold winter months.

I have even driven the car for one hour, parked in the garage, and 2 hours later, sluggish on startup. The alternator has been checked. Sometimes I even place it on a Battery Tender trickle charger and it fully charges within 2-3 hours, which is telling me the battery is 85% fully charged (I think). Upon startup, sometimes everything on the dash goes dim, and it starts. I keep the vanity lights off when you open the car doors, just in case a door is not closed properly so there is no drain on the battery. Of course, the clock and radio preset(s) are always there and never lost like most cars, so there must be a constant drain on the car because of memory.

A few questions:

Q: Will a scan tool OBDII be able to show the battery health or the % of charge? If not, what can I get? This way I can see how quickly the battery drains.
Q: What should I do to test and possibly determine if there in fact is an actual drain?
Q: Anything else comes to mind of what other causes there can be?


I feel I covered most of the car, but any questions I should be able to provide an answer, including everything that was replaced on the vehicle, even with the prior owner. Have all the receipts and created a sheet log for tracking.

LeX2K

I'm curious why you would leave an interior light on, or leave the door open? Or you're saying that is being done by accident? With this being so random I would highly suspect the LoJack module can it be disconnected temporarily? You need one of these

Without it (or using a standard test meter in amp mode) you have no way of knowing how much current is being drawn when the car is off. Can you post a picture of the battery/battery terminals?

OBD reader will show voltage but not charging current.

Catanzaro

By accident, the door is left open and the car is not locked. YES, the LoJack can be disconnected, and only the company can send out a tech. They actually will only provide the location of the unit when the person is by the car. Yes, I will post a picture of the battery shortly. When I spoke to LoJack, they stated that even with the battery backup in the unit being so old, this should not drain the battery. I suspect that is incorrect and the unit if still working is pinging consistently with the Tower.

Catanzaro

Note that the battery was installed under a service plan at no charge. The car is driven consistently, at least every other day for 30 minutes at highway speeds above 45 mph.

LeX2K

To be blunt that negative terminal is trash you can't trust it to make a proper connection. Replace it. If the factory wire/lug is still intact then get this
https://www.toyotapartsdeal.com/oem/...982-06022.html
If not, this
https://www.ebay.com/itm/185573133543

Also clean off whatever type of grease that is, then clean the terminals and battery posts with a maroon Scotch-Brite pad. Then you can test for parasitic draw.

Catanzaro

I will order the Terminal, Battery Negative as the wiring is OEM and still intact. AAA sprayed this on the terminals. I will clean accordingly. I firmly believe that LoJack has to be called to remove the unit. At one point they wanted $99 + Tax, which is still not too bad. I doubt I can trace it back to an area and find it.


When the old one fell apart, the old mechanic put this on. Thank you, and no you are not being blunt. Appreciate your help.


Is this aftermarket ok, or stick with OEM?

LeX2K

Unclear if that is OEM, it looks very similar. I wouldn't try and save $5-10 though get it from a dealer. Why does the LoJack have to removed by them? Problem with those types of modules is they are intrusive into the factory wiring and often installed poorly. For example bad crimp connections, and of course the unit itself can fail.

This looks to be OEM notice the cleaner machining and it has better ridges on the inner part of the clamp. Could simply be differences in lighting etc. but get this one

Catanzaro

I have contacted other places, and the cost is like 3X-4X that of LoJack directly at $99 + Tax. At least I will be able to see the company remove the unit in my driveway. They are mobile. I was told that only when they arrive will they be provided the exact location, for huge security reasons. Beyond me. IMHO, I feel it is the LoJack given that mechanics have spent over 8 years trying to figure out the draw when no one has ever looked at the Lo Jack. Based on my conversation with the previous owner (who I still know very well), she called them at least 3X-4X yearly for a jump start and every 12-18 months batteries would fail. Strange, but true.

I will order the Toyota Brand on Amazon and call LoJack next week. In the near future, I will report back to see if this was the issue. Thank you.

Catanzaro

So I went to go move the vehicle. The start was very slow like it barely cranked over. So I drove it towards the garage, popped the hood, and hooked up the battery tender. Within 1 minute, it was showing nearly charged. Unless there is something wrong with the charger. So I decided to unplug everything and move the car back into a spot in the driveway. Shut the vehicle off, then started it back up again, and it fired up without any hesitation.

Question: Is it possible this could be a fuel-related (fuel pump) intermittent issue at times? The car sat overnight, but it appears the battery is at full capacity. Then sometimes, the cold start is very smooth, file the warm start is not even after driving.

The mystery continues .... So this pattern is not consistent at all. I will track the daily patterns for a few days and see what happens ..

Catanzaro

This morning, no crank. Dead as a door ****. I used jumper cables and the other cars' engined had to be held steady at 3,000 RPMs to get a good jump. Now in the garage being charged and it is fully charged after 5 minutes. The car was driven for 45 minutes, so I am wondering if the CCA are bad in the car battery. The battery is from AAA so it just may not be of quality. It is a 3-year 100% warranty battery, so if this happens again, I will have them come out and perform a load test. The best case is covered under the warranty. The previous owner always used AAA for the car battery. I will also order the negative battery connector.

Maybe a lighter oil for the winter may help, not sure. A little frustrating. The other option is to attach positive and negative wires (larger gauge wires) and hook it up to my charger overnight every other day, always keeping the battery at 100%, but this is a PIA. Last night the temperatures dropped into the lower 20's here. Car was not driven the other day. Maybe just a bad battery at this point, who knows.

Arsenii

Hello,

This actually sounds like a dreaded and inherent issue with 80A alternator being barely sufficient for the power demand of those cars, it can get bad enough to the point of a single turn signal causing the lights to dim and idle to drop a slight bit, and it was also connected to the lights starting to flicker once in a while when the car is cold.

Check the voltage on the battery when all the equipment you described in On, the voltage should not drop below at least 12-12.5V. If it does, it means that the battery is not charging, and the alternator is struggling to keep up. The way to solve it is to get an RX300/Highlander 100A alternator, which fits right in with no alterations required.

Next, use the clamp meter that LeX2K linked earlier to see if there is indeed any drain on the battery after about 30 minutes of the car being Off and Locked, which would indicate some system staying up, causing the battery issues.

And lastly, it may be just me, but I am really not a fan of any aftermarket systems being tapped into the car, and let's be honest, who in their right mind would try stealing a 20 year old Lexus at this point..? Try tracing the wiring for the LoJack to find its power wire, those wires should be pretty easy to make out as they will be starkly different from the OEM wiring. It is usually not about the system being failed, but the way most of them are installed and wired that causes a ton of issues down the road, when they are not secured by anything, starting to rattle around, and when the wires are simply twisted together with no solid joints.

Hope this helps and best of luck!

Catanzaro

Arsenii:

Thank you for your advice. No one is going to steal this car. You could spot it a mile away unless the person is going to scrap it and use it for parts. As mentioned previously, the vehicle is hit or miss. Yesterday, I fully charged the battery and in the mid-afternoon, it went back outside. This morning, it cranked over perfectly fine. I have had 3 mechanics (all friends) luckily test the alternator and it is okay. At least what I know. I would rather not keep throwing money into this car. It is a spare car and I always have jumper cables. Once it goes in the morning, it never gives me trouble, not at least in the last 2.5 years. This morning I was ready to call AAA, explain the situation, and charge it again, only to have it not start tomorrow and they would replace it at 100% coverage for free. It started perfectly fine. Tomorrow is another day. The LoJack is coming out for sure. Maybe this LoJack operates in a cycle where it drains the battery and is really not consistent so it is hard to figure this out. So this is why it is drained one day, but not the next and there is nothing that stands out. Once removed, I will have a better idea. Just waiting on the holidays to end. Happy Holidays!

Arsenii

What I meant with the alternator is that it is basically a screw-up by Toyota, the rated output of an OEM alternator is barely sufficient for those cars, especially as they age. Fun part is that Toyota Windom, a JDM analog for ES300, got a 100A unit off of RX300 from the factory. The thing is that the car doesn't necessarily need all 80A that this alternator is capable of providing, it is usually a lot less.

Alternators require very specific conditions to output their rated power (80A in this case), like specific temperature, RPM, etc., and they have a curvature that they follow in specific conditions, meaning that on idle you may be getting mere 20-30A out of it, and the output will increase as the RPM goes up, hence why your Battery Light is on until you raise the RPM. The point of an alternator with higher rated output is the fact that it also changes the mentioned curvature, which not only increases the output on idle, but also reduces the load on the engine, since a lot less of an alternator's resource is being utilized.

All that is to say that your alternator is likely very much functional, it is a lack of reserved output, a miscalculation from the factory that I was referring to before, and that may be causing issues you have in the winter, hence why I wrote about measuring the voltage when the system is loaded before replacing the alternator. With that, if you can deal with it, that's totally fine as it won't cause any damage to the car, it's just very annoying to have to jump start it every morning.

Hope this helps and best of luck!

Catanzaro

Arsenii:

I only have issues about once per week in the winter, and if not driven every day.

I think you hit something right on the nose. In the morning, when cold outside, and even raining, I have the 2 heated seats turned on, the front defroster, rear defroster, heater, and radio on, including the lights, fog lights, and maybe even the cigarette lighter charging a phone. At idle, sometimes the battery light comes on. As soon as I press on the gas pedal to raise the RPMs, the battery light disappears. Even the power windows operate very very slowly. Point proven.

Now, because of this strange battery issue and sometimes not starting in the morning, and all kinds of weather, I have some handy friends, we decided to replace the starter ($110) with no labor costs and I purchased a new alternator (OEM Rebuilt Densin) which I probably did not need. Paid this guy $50 to install. Out the door, it was like $275, which probably did not need.

As suspected, the alternator was a Denso remanufactured 80 Amp. If the problem continues, and I want to upgrade the alternator, what exactly should I be looking for? Which brand and which output?

I am kind of attached to the Lexus, given a spare car to add a lot of miles to. Not best on gas, but to keep this vehicle running is a lot less expensive than the other vehicles, and it will not depreciate as much either, giving me an advantage. Thank you.

Arsenii

Any Denso Rebuilt unit would work just fine, they pretty much only leave the windings and the housing, replacing everything else, I have one in my 2000 ES300. Any car that came with 1MZ-FE engine will have an interchangeable alternator, including but not limited to - RX300, Highlander, Avalon, Sienna. Here you can find more details about it, and here is an alternator that is guaranteed fit.

Hope this helps and best of luck!