I had a nasty surprise this morning. My van’s battery was DEAD. Even the interior dome lights refused to come on.
Van had been parked since the snow Monday. We had three nights with lows below 10 F.
Called AAA. I thought the cold had zapped the 2 1/2 year old battery. Had the AAA guy install a New battery $140. That hurts. 3 weeks after Christmas.
Later today, I noticed a LED on my 12V power cord. I just started using this cable a couple weeks ago. I normally drive the van daily. Snow and ice made it sit 5 days.
Power cords shouldn’t draw power unless a device is plugged in? Why would this cord have a LED? It went off after I unplugged it from the car’s accessory jack.
If severe cold sucks the life out of a battery. It needs replacing. Otherwise you’ll find yourself stranded again after a 7F night. Weak car batteries die in very cold weather.
If that charger cord is responsible. I just wasted $140. Jumper cables and a short drive would have charged the battery.
Its going to be nuisance to constantly unplug that thing. But, if it kills the battery there’s no alternative.
My mistake is thinking of it as a 12V power cord. It’s a usb charger cord.
Yes, a usb cord can suck a battery dry over a few days - it’s happened to me. No, it doesn’t need to be connected to anything. That’s why I don’t use them any more - I installed a coupla hard wired ones on to a switched power line.
Note that cold (even temps well below 10F) does not by itself drain or deteriorate a battery.
It is true that a battery’s ability to deliver power declines with temperature, so it takes less load to drain a cold battery to the point where it may be compromised.
That was a very expensive lesson in USB chargers for the car.
I’ve used 12V power cables for thirty years. They’re just like an extension cord. They don’t draw power unless there’s a short or its plugged into a device…
I thought a phone charger for the car just delivered 12V to the phone. I didn’t realize there’s a circuit in there.
That’s one lesson I’ll never forget. That phone charger will be unplugged each time I shut off the motor.
I probably had another year left on that battery I replaced. At least I don’t have to worry about it again for three years.
Phones need 5V power, not 12V. So the “power cord” contains a voltage regulator. Voltage regulators consume some power even when nothing is connected to it.
Although, in my experience, most cars shut off power to the power outlet when the car is turned off. If your car does that, there’s no way anything plugged in to the outlet can drain the battery.
Not nearly as expensive as the one I learned a year ago: namely to either buy a high-quality charger or to not plug your smart phone into a cheap one (preferably do both) until after you’ve started the car. There can be big fluctuations and surges while starting the vehicle, which go to the charging plug.
Better quality chargers have components within to protect against this, and smart phones also have some built-in ability to handle power fluctuations of a certain magnitude, but the phone its self can’t handle a big surge that a cheap charger doesn’t deal with.
I was in the habit of using cheap plug-in chargers, and plugging my phone in and leaving it so while making several stop/start errands. Got away with it for a while but then one day I heard a “pop!” right after the car started, and then realized I had fried my $600 iphone. Took it to a store that specialized in fixing them and replacing components… and $40 later they said they couldn’t do anything and the phone was junk… including all the pictures, contacts, notes, and so forth I had saved on it.
More good advice. The cigarette lighter in my car is always “hot”. It delivers voltage whether the key is turned on or not. The key doesn’t even have to be turned to accessory. I don’t plug anything into it until I have turned on the engine.
I have this USB car charger that I leave plugged in all of the time. The power jack in the car is on even when the ignition is off, so if the USB charger has a parasitic draw it will be draining the battery. I’ve never had a problem.
A few weeks ago I did have to replace the battery, but I blame that on the battery being 7.5 years old, and the cold temperatures being too much for it. The USB charger has been in use for 1.5 years, and never drained the battery.
My car has at least two LEDs which are on when the ignition is off, a flashing one near the door lock, and a flashing one on the radio. Additionally the LCD screen for the odometer is always on, but not backlit. I think if all your charger is doing is lighting an LED, then that wouldn’t have drained the battery, as there’s a good chance there are LEDs on anyway. If your charger does have a large parasitic draw, then you should notice it is warm even when not in use. If you can, take it’s temperature when the car is otherwise cold.
My guess is what happened to your battery is just like what happened to mine. It was marginal, but you didn’t notice because it wasn’t under any strain, and then the cold killed it.
My thought for you, is that if your battery was only 2.5 years old, it might be under warranty.
And the prices? I paid $65 for a battery for this car in 2008. This time I bought the cheapest battery I could find, and it was $110 (Walmart off brand, but 3 year full warranty and 5 prorated).
Car wouldn’t start so I popped the hood and checked the battery. I could see the bulge in the battery case caused by the water expansion and thought “Oh, that can’t be good.” It wasn’t.
They sell(sold) devices that would cut power to the cig lighter plug when it detected the car was not running. Basically you plug this into the cig lighter and then the device into that.
Also draining a car battery that slowly and completely when it’s so cold and especially if the battery is old can kill it, though it may have had years left.
Your comment that all you needed may have ben a jump and a short drive is a attitude that will lead to a shorter battery life. A long drive would be needed, or a battery charger. A short drive would leave the battery still deeply discharged, and though it may ‘work’ find, the time spent at a low state of charge is harmful to it’s life. So if you took the jump and short drive route you could ahve easially killed it shortly after by not charging it much.
for those who have aux power ports in their car that are always on, check the car manual. In the cars I have owned, that is a programmable setting. It is often hard to find the information-check online-but usually there is a guide to a bunch of obscure functions in your car that can be modified/turn on/off with the right set of steps. In most cases you don’t seem to need any special equipment, just know the steps.
