I have a 2020 f450 that I purchase brand new in January of 2020. I have been plagued, since day one with phantom draining batteries. The dealership has replaced the batteries one time under warranty. However, I have replaced the batteries five separate times after that.

If I do not drive the truck everyday the batteries will die. When I first got the vehicle there was no aftermarket accessories so I know that wasn't the issue initially. I now have a dash cam and a transfer tank in the bed. The dash cam auto shuts off at 12.2 volts and the transfer tank only pumps if I flip the switch.

I have since unhooked both of those items to make sure that it was not those things causing it. I have just installed my most recent set of batteries, brand new AGM batteries. I installed these about 2 weeks ago. The last time I drove the truck was Friday, and I came to dead batteries on Sunday morning.

I am so incredibly frustrated at this. I literally have spent thousands of dollars on new batteries for this truck and I have no idea what is causing the drain. Is this a known issue? Is there anything else I can do to help with this? I'm considering figuring out a way to put a battery cut off switch in, but then I would need to figure a way to get into the vehicle each time.. my current issue is that I did the keyhole delete., I've gotten in a habit of leaving the windows cracked or the hood popped every time I stop.

I would appreciate any thoughts or help that any of y'all have

 

Search YouTube on doing a Parasitic drain test. It’s fairly simple to do and will eliminate items in your truck that aren’t causing the issue. Could be as simple as a bad head unit in your truck or a stuck circuit somewhere.

 

What @mattymax said. You need to track down the parasitic draw to solve the problem.

Bob

 

i had my 2012 lemon lawed due to the same issue, was an 18 month process to get it bought back. they could never find the source of the draw.

 

2019 had the same problem.

3 sets of batteries in 5 years

i first ran a 4 guage ground from the pax side battery neg to the drivers side battery neg. That was a big improvement.

next I turned off ford pass and all remote monitoring and remote start. That did it

 

I have come to suspect the modem and vehicle communications with the mothership being the culprit. This is why i never even created an account with fordpass on both of mine. In each of them I can park them for upwards of a month and they crank right up. My 22 is finally starting to take a little cranking to start if I don't start it for 3 weeks or more, but up to now it's a trooper.

I think not having proximity sensor that's constantly on doesn't hurt either.

 

I'd start checking fuses with everything in the truck off. You should find the culprit pretty quickly. Use a test light, if it glows on a fuse, check it with a volt meter. That's a big draw. Should be easy to spot.

 

Do you have anything plugged into you OBDII port? Royalty Auto has a number of good YouTube videos about diagnosing parasitic draws. One that i watched showed that one of the popular insurance company dongles was causing a 150mA draw, where 25mA would be normal.

 

If all the parasitic draw checking fails, you can go old school and install a battery cutoff kill switch.

 

I realize it doesn't help solve the problem now, but if it was an issue from day 1 why didn't you press for warranty to fix the issue? Just curious. I imagine it was probably hard to get a dealership to keep on it with everything being blamed on the VID at the time.

 

Oh I did. They had the truck for over 90 days at various times to diagnose. Never could find anything and it was another 7 days every time I dropped it off. Besides that and the 11 months for the 1st transmission replacement, and 3 months each for the next 2 under warranty, I wanted my truck.

It now has 50k miles on it. I ended up buying a Silverado in the meantime that I used for towing and everything, but anyway

 

An Infrared Thermometer can help find your culprit.

 

explain for us neophytes, you wouldnt think a 0.1-0.3 volt draw would change the temp that much?

Then how much draw should you see now days with all these bells and whistles, before you worry, if his truck sits that long why doesnt it go into that hybernate mode or whatever it is.

 

The draw across a fuse will definitely show a heat signature above ambient. The circuit with the draw will show heat from the draw. Those are the circuits I would investigate first.

 

you should have for sure lemon lawed it if they had it for that many days for multiple reoccurring issues.