I bought a 2018 Ford Explorer Limited v6 3.5 (no turbo, no flex fuel) from Carmax. It was a fleet car for a rental company. Right off the bat within the first couple of months they replaced the battery because it was shut down and no power was getting to vehicle. I've had it for almost 6 years and every 6 months to a year I'm having either the battery or alternator replaced through warranty, which is kind of convenient because I'm only paying 250 for deductible and a lot of times they group work done together. But the source of the problem has not been found and the auto repair store doesn't seem to lift an eye brow when I ask about it. I've had the most recent battery tested and it was good and even wasn't fully dead after pulling it out of the car when it wouldn't start. Right now it's been dying every day and I bought my wife a charger she can leave on the truck overnight but it just dies as soon as she turns it of the next day. It's not an agm battery and someone at advance auto said it should have an agm battery for all the things that are powered inside the truck. What do I need to do?
I've had it for almost 6 years and every 6 months to a year I'm having either the battery or alternator replaced
It's common to see alternators with 200K miles on them, batteries at 5-9 years.
That many replacements is ridiculous. Warranty has paid this so far but after paying 6 years of $250 deductibles, why not take it to another mechanic. With or without the warranty's help , go ahead and find out what's causing such a high failure rate.
Actually I was taking it to Carmax for the first few times. In fact I think it was so early from the time I bought it I didn't have to pay for anything but I've been taking it to C and C automotive because Carmax schedule is always slammed all the time.
I figured out this, that it's some kind of parasitic battery drain and if I unplug the battery when it's off it works fine. I haven't brought it anywhere else because I haven't been able to afford it.
Grab a multimeter and find the offending circuit. There are many videos on YT showing how, here's one: https://youtu.be/KF1gijj03_0
So my boss at work asked if I had any after market things on it and I told him the only thing is a trailer tow hitch. He said start with that. So I started checking amps and had like 600 mili amps when it was a sleep. All the fuses were good when I checked with my multimeter but reading the manual I saw trailer tow battery charge relay and so when I removed it, it went down to 10 miliamps.
bingo
Glad to hear you found your parasite {pear}:laugh:
So it seems to still die and I think it's because of the short trips my wife makes but I still think somethings draining it. The 600 miliamps I think is what it goes to in it's initial sleep stage but after about 10 minutes it goes down