Originally Posted by mikeyc6

Automatics do not have column lock. Plus, I did a number of tries slapping the shifter out of R just as I was shutting down. If the reverse switch was bad, it'd have to be bad when you are shutting the car down and then it would give you all the "shift to reverse" warnings. Once the car has been shut down in R, you can take it out of reverse, put it back in again, take it out again, etc. and it will never cause a current draw.

There was one permutation that I found that would cause the car to run the battery down without the normal warnings. It is possible that this sequence has caused a DBS or two, but I wouldn't think it would be common:

(1) Shut off car in reverse and exit.
(2) Come back later and get back in to get something.
(3) Bump the shifter out of R (or have a bad R switch).
(4) Press the accessory switch to turn acc mode on.
(5) Press the accessory switch again to turn acc off.
(6) Exit, shut door and walk away.

If you do the above quickly enough, you may get out before you see the "shift to reverse" message and at least on my car, the above doesn't produce the same three horn honks that you get if you shut down initially without being in reverse. Also, the lights don't stay on like they do if you shut down without it being in reverse. This might lead people to think there is no problem yet accessory mode will stay on forever because the car refuses to return to sleep mode once accessory mode is turned on/off with the shifter in a gear other than R.

In any case, the car requires the shifter to be in reverse after two operations: (1) shutting the engine down after a normal run and (2) after turning accessory mode on and then back off. Unfortunately, the warnings seem to act a little "differently" when (2) occurs and this could be fooling people. I did get a fast ding-ding-ding that you get when accessory mode is left on as I exited after (2) but in my case, the ding-ding-ding sound didn't start until I was halfway out the door. If I exited very quickly, I could actually get the door almost shut before the ding-ding-ding started up. After the door is shut, there is no indication that the car is "locked" in accessory mode unless you peer in through the glass and look at the dash.

Mike

Originally Posted by mikeyc6

I found out a few days ago that just pressing on the door membrane (with the car locked and no fob) would wake up the car and cause a draw of about 2 amps for about 30 seconds. I then got the idea to do some testing with a digital voltmeter attached to see what would wake the car up and for how long. The test procedures were to connect the digital voltmeter directly to the battery, look at the voltage in the "sleeping" state, and then do something (like touch the door) and record how much voltage drop there was and how long it took the voltage to come back up. Doing this allowed me to test different wake-up/sleep sequences.

The results are here

One thing I noticed is that just touching the door membrane caused a current draw that would stop after 30 seconds. Actually opening the door and closing it would cause even more current draw and for a longer period of time (1 minute). One interesting thing that I found is that if you just touch the door membrane and it doesn't open (because it is locked and there is no fob nearby), there was a steady current draw for 30 seconds. In contrast, actually opening the door and closing it would produce about the same draw for a few seconds, then a momentary "blip" of much higher current draw lasting no more than 1 second, and then back to the original current draw. This indicates that something is being "tapped" momentarily and this adds to the steady-state current draw.

I found really no difference between readings doing similar tests with relay 46 out versus in. This doesn't mean that it is not a cause, only that it appeared to do nothing in my 20 or so tests. I also found that once the car was shut down properly in reverse, you could move the stick out of reverse and test results are the same with the stick in N as long as you initially shut down in reverse. We knew this of course, this just confirms it. One interesting thing that I didn't know just because I had never tested it is the fact that if you shift to R, shut down, and then shift to N, the car is fine but if you then hit the accessory button with the car in N and turn accessory mode back off, it will ask you to place the car in reverse again after using accessory mode.

Not sure what useful information this gives, but if nothing else, maybe it gives us a way to be able to test things.

Mike

Originally Posted by BlackMagik

Mike,

Don't know if you have a shop manual, but I find it interesting that the schmatic for the "Steering Column Lock Control Module" was set up to apply for either an automatic or manual transmission. Wonder if the module is even installed in automatics. I am pawing over these schmatics trying to find the differences between Auto and Manual. Lots to look at still but that module, lock motor and associated message center is fairly significant.

Gary