2005 C6 Battery Drain

[John_Scherer]

My C6 was ordered end Aug. 2004 and delivered 2 Nov. 2004. In Feb. 2005 I needed a jump start from AAA and the dealer found a dead cell in the battery which he claimed was creating a draw. A new battery was installed. Last Friday, 17 June, the battery needed a jump again after the car had been sitting only 3 days. The dealer found nothing wrong and even called Chevy Tech Center which claimed they had experienced no problems such as mine. My Vette has NAV system, Z-51, 6-speed, etc. I am very conscious of putting the transmission in reverse as the owners manual demands. I ran this by a friend who ordered a C6 at the same time I did. Our cars came in on the same day and the same delivery truck. He has been experiencing the same problem with battery drain and thought it was his fault, but he is also very conscious of leaving the car in reverse per the owners manual. I find this very strange since there are now two cars with the same problem. Have any of you other C6 owners experienced problems with battery drain? I feel that there is an intermittent problem here which Chevy has not yet experienced enough to warrant an investigation, come up with a fix and perhaps even a recall.

 

[Billybeau1]

I've had my C6 since Feb. No battery problems yet. What I dont understand is this. The C6 has a feature called "Battery run-down protection" where if you leave any lamps on by accident, they automatically time-out after about 20 min. Which leads me to believe the problem is elsewhere. Did your new battery have a good charge in it when installed? I'm wondering if the old battery was even bad at all. First I would make sure your new battery is fully charged and then see if it happens again. Keep us posted.

 

[c4c5specialist]

HI there,
There are a few keys to this.
First, how long does it take for the battery to run down.
Are there any aftermarket accessory that could be draining, but not on the BCM run down protection circuit??/
If so, much must be investigated before this can be correctly diagnosed.
Allthebest, c4c5

 

[timetovette]

HI there,
There are a few keys to this.
First, how long does it take for the battery to run down.
Are there any aftermarket accessory that could be draining, but not on the BCM run down protection circuit??/
If so, much must be investigated before this can be correctly diagnosed.
Allthebest, c4c5

I was told by my dealer to apply the parking brake every time the car is parked as it somehow disengages the electronics.
Don't know if that is true, but for now I'm following directions.
Joe

 

[John_Scherer]

Car was left stock with no dealer add-ons or after-market gadgets. No cell phones or other devices are left in the car's cigarette lighter either. What is interesting is that I went to Europe for 5 weeks after the new battery was installed and the car started right up upon my return. It was driven for rides of over 500 miles after I returned and so the battery must have been fully charged. On the last occurrence the car sat for only 4 days. I have a feeling that the problem is due to some intermittent circuitry glitch.

 

[John_Scherer]

Car sat for only 4 days this time and manual trans was in reverse per owner's manual with the parking brake set . Funny thing is that after the new battery was installed it sat for 5 weeks while I was in Europe and started right up after my return. Alternator checks out OK also.

 

[tonyhood]

Battery Draining while parked

I just posted this in another thread, but this one seemed more relevant.

And to answer the obvious question first, of course I make the sure the car is in reverse, parking brake is set, car shuts down and alarm is set. No peripherial devices to contribute to the problem.

I'm posting another update. While parked at the airport for 3 days or more, my battery drains to the point I can't open the car, can't start the car and have to get a jump to get going again. This is the 5th time this has happened to me in the past 6 months. 2 times in the past two weeks. I'm taking the car back to the dealership for the third time to see if they can find the problem. This time, I'll have to leave it for a full week so they can duplicate the conditions. It's fine as long as I start the car and drive it every day or two days. But more than 3 days, and bam...dead.

By the way, I did replace the battery with a brand new one. No help. I even installed a Battery Protector as I read about on this forum. That worked one time, but not the last time. The first time I was only gone 3 days so maybe there was still enough juice once I triggered the switch. But last week, 5 days out, and totally dead. Had to be jump started. I'm really getting tired of being stranded every time I have to drive and leave my car at the airport. Thank God for the parking lot crew at the Atlanta airport. They are always there to give me a jump start. We're pretty much on a first name basis by now!

 

[smook]

I owned a C6 'vert 2005 stock. This car would generally for no reason "not start". Dealer could NOT fix it. I couldn't find the problem. My guess is that a drain some where causes this issue. But I know also that many C6 owners have this problem. Possibly a bad ground? I solved it by selling the car. I became very disappointed with all the TSB's and issue after issue on this car. I owned a Z06 2004 that I stored. I am now enjoying the 2004 Z06 ce.

HAPPY AGAIN.
Bill.

 

[tonyhood]

Thanks Bill, but I'm pretty sure that won't be my solution. I have a 2003 50th Anniversary, but my wife is driving that one. I will chase this until GM fixes it.

 

[shepardd]

DEAD battery

Took delivery of my new C6 (6-sp manual) at the museum on Aug 13th. It had a dead battery that morning which should have caused my immediate concern but the people there are knowledgeable.

Went several weeks w/o problems before the draught ended (along with the sunny days) in Virginia. Three days later, dead again. Off to purchase a battery charger.

This past Thursday it showed a full charge but Sunday morning it was dead again. I proceeded to film the process of opening the trunk, opening the door, and showing that my steering column lock was clearly locked. Believe that adequately shows that my car was in reverse. Back on the charger.

Clearly this car either has a bad battery (hopefully) or with whatever switch is supposed to tell it to shutdown.

 

[tonyhood]

DBS #5 and counting

Hey guys, I just thought I would post the results of my 3rd trip to the dealer with this issue this week. I left my car all week long, and I explained to them that this seems to be a 4 day deal for me. Everytime I leave my car parked at the airport (underground) for 4 days or more, I can count on my batter being dead. Various levels of discharge. They let it sit in their shop for 4 days and it fired right up. They ran all the normal checks for battery drain and couldn't come up with anything. I suspected this would be the outcome. I talked for a long time with their top Corvette mechanic, a very knowledgable. But this has him stumped too. There does seem to be something here about all of these modules that communicate with each other, and it appears that the normal Chevy dealer does not have the diagnostics equipment to really check this out. I wish I could have had something more to report, but for me it looks like it's just wait until my next long airport parking event, and see if I can pick up some more clues. I do have the GM Cust Service folks looking into this too. Between all of us, maybe we can figure it out. Doesn't look like GM is being much help right now.

PS: Just fyi...something I learned from the mechanic. Once you put the car into reverse for shutdown, you can take the car back out of gear or put it in another gear without jeopardizing the electricals. The reverse lock is just for the shutdown sequence. Once it has shutdown, it doesn't have to stay in reverse.

 

[tonyhood]

Escalation of DBS complaints

This is another path to helping get GM to recognize this issue. You can file a complaint with the National Highway Transportation and Safety group. They have an area where you can file a complaint. I see that there were several already filed about the balancer bolt issue, and the brake line issue....and GM has issued service bulletins on both of those. Maybe this is the next step.

The link is....
http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov

 

[Timd]

Dead Battery

My C6 was ordered end Aug. 2004 and delivered 2 Nov. 2004. In Feb. 2005 I needed a jump start from AAA and the dealer found a dead cell in the battery which he claimed was creating a draw. A new battery was installed. Last Friday, 17 June, the battery needed a jump again after the car had been sitting only 3 days. The dealer found nothing wrong and even called Chevy Tech Center which claimed they had experienced no problems such as mine. My Vette has NAV system, Z-51, 6-speed, etc. I am very conscious of putting the transmission in reverse as the owners manual demands. I ran this by a friend who ordered a C6 at the same time I did. Our cars came in on the same day and the same delivery truck. He has been experiencing the same problem with battery drain and thought it was his fault, but he is also very conscious of leaving the car in reverse per the owners manual. I find this very strange since there are now two cars with the same problem. Have any of you other C6 owners experienced problems with battery drain? I feel that there is an intermittent problem here which Chevy has not yet experienced enough to warrant an investigation, come up with a fix and perhaps even a recall.

I had a 2006 Corvette and experienced other problems, but the issue with dead batteries is not limited to Covettes. The BUS systems in new vehicles has modules that get turned on by the computer for reasons that people can't explain, and runs the battery dead. Example, the On-Star module turns it self on and the battery is dead the next morning. Best one I have ever seen is the backup radar (not a Corvette option) module is turned on by the radar that stops your dog from getting crushed by the garage door, the result is, you guessed it, a dead battery. There is a device called a "HOBO" that monitors battery voltage drain and it will tell you when the module went on, but not what module it is that is causing the problem. Good luck!

 

[rambo]

Are the dead batteries limited to C6's with 6-spd manual transmissions?

Are the dead batteries limited to C6's with 6-spd manual transmissions?

rambo

 

[tonyhood]

DBS 6SP MNL and '06 Models

Rambo, yes it does appear that only the 6 spd cars are affected by this, which points me to the reverse lockout procedure. I agree with what Timd said about the modules coming on and off, and everything being linked with a communication bus, however that does not explain why this only happens to the manual trans cars. If it was the OnStar or other communications modules, it should happen to the automatic trans cars too.

Here is what I posted in another forum as an update to my situation......

I had to go back to the dealer today, where I had my car all last week. Just by chance I ran into another mechanic talking with the Service Manager. They recognized me and my car from last week. My car has been in there 3 times and I was told that no one else was having this battery discharge problem, mine was the only one. This is a BIG Corvette dealer, the biggest in Atlanta. (I'm sure you can figure it out if you want.) Anyway, it seems that mine is not the only Corvette that's been there with DBS. The mechanic assured me that this was a very common problem. It appears they had kind of a "gag order" as not to exacerbate the situation. But it was obvious that this was a common occurance and one they had not been able to figure out.

Anyway, the one piece of information that was bantered about earlier this weekend was if GM did away with the reverse lockout shutdown procedure on the '06. The answer is YES. They did away with it. That tells me something. They wouldn't have spent the time and money in engineering to fix something that wasn't broken. I know the reverse lockout wasn't very popular, but unless it was doing something to cause them heartburn, or cost them money, they wouldn't have spent money fixing it on the '06. I'm going to pursue this path .

PS: they said they had not seen any DBS on the '06's

 

[Timd]

The "park it in reverse" issues was fixed on the 2006 cars. The Z51, 6 speed I had was never parked in reverse, and I was told that in 05 it mattered, but not 06. I only had the car for a month, but the battery never went dead, but I also did not have OnStar, NAV or XM. Also, if you keep a set of keys in the car or near the car, it keeps the modules on, and the battery goes dead. Trust me, this problem is not limited to Corvettes or GM, it is an industry issue.

 

[tonyhood]

The "park it in reverse" issues was fixed on the 2006 cars. The Z51, 6 speed I had was never parked in reverse, and I was told that in 05 it mattered, but not 06. I only had the car for a month, but the battery never went dead, but I also did not have OnStar, NAV or XM. Also, if you keep a set of keys in the car or near the car, it keeps the modules on, and the battery goes dead. Trust me, this problem is not limited to Corvettes or GM, it is an industry issue.

Yeah on the '05 cars it not only "mattered", it is impossible to shut the system down without shifting into reverse. And that was my point in my last post, they have eliminated that "feature" from the '06 models. Hence my conclusion that this must have been a problem or they would not have changed it. Now what can they do to help us poor old '05 owners who still have the issue.

I agree with you about the modules coming on and off, based on outside influence, like the OnStar system trying to communicate even with the car shut down and you or your key fob not being anywhere around. But again, this DBS problem seems restricted to the manual transmission cars, no matter if you have OnStar or XMS, Nav etc. That's what points me toward the reverse lockout.

By the way, the times my car has suffered the DBS it was parked at the airport and my keys were with me in a completely different city. So the issue was not keeping the keys too close. There may be an industry issue with this key situation, but I am totally convinced that there is defintely a problem related to the '05 C6 manual trans cars, with or without the OnStar or XMS.

 

[mr1960]

Yes, mine did the same thing. Fine one day and 5 days later it was dead. It would not even take a charge from a charger. It would not even jump start. It was to far down. I had to leave it connected for about an hour, then it started. Took it to the Chevy dealer and they could not fine anything wrong. They just charged it up some. I put it back on the charger when I got home and all is OK now. But what about the battery saver? It did not work.

 

[StanNH]

The only thing that is known for sure, is that the battery drain is related to the shift to reverse/steering wheel lock feature on the 2005 MN6 cars. Any other factors should be affecting the automatics as well as the sticks, and they don't seem to be doing that. There's also no way of knowing how many cars are being hit with this problem...worst case scenario is about 25% based on various polls. My own feeling is that's it's considerably less than that.

Everyone seems to agree that eliminating the shift to reverse/steering wheel lock circuitry will cure the problem for those 2005 cars that have the problem. Whether GM will ever actually address the issue is a whole other issue.

In my own case, I've owned my car for 13 months and it's endured some frigid temperatures in an unheated garage. So far, no problems. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[StanNH]

Let me amend my last post

This morning, 11/14/2005, my C6 wouldn't respond to the fob or anything else. I had to gain access by using the emergency hatch key, then pulling the manual door release. Everything in the car was dead, not even the radio security light was blinking. I called the dealer and a flatbed was here within 15 minutes. First feedback from their tech...battery is completly dead at 0 volts measured, and the computer is showing no recorded faults.

The car was left in reverse, the hand brake was applied, and the steering column lock was engaged. I verified all this when I got into the car. It had not been driven for 6 days, which should not have been a factor at all. Thirteen months without the slightest problem and then good old DBS hits from out of nowhere. This is about the weirdest problem I've ever seen. Now I understand why they did away with the shift to reverse and steering wheel lock features for 2006, since something in that circuitry is obviously not doing what it's supposed to be doing.