I am now pissed off enough to post. My truck battery has died once more due to leaving something plugged into the cigarette plug in my truck. Many other vehicles make the 12 v plug shut off when the vehicle does, this saves the battery from draining and killing it. Ford doesn't do that...

when i bought my truck i asked the service department to make it switched.. they said it could not be done ... that's BS... you just want to sell more batteries.

Who has made one of the 12v plugs switched? how hard can it be?

THANKS GUYS!

 

What do you have plugged in that's draining that much juice?

 

I found this out when I got a cheap dash cam to try - ever single outlet is hot all the time. You are supposed to plug it into a switched plug so the camera will only run when the vehicle is running.

Yeah, I could hard wire it but didn't want to go through the trouble as it was just a cheap camera and was just trying it out to see if I liked it enough to buy a better one.

 

How much power is that dash cam pulling and how long are you leaving it running for without running the truck?? I have a small cooler than draws several amps and it's never run my battery down even thought I've left it for close to 24 hours. I think you're either leaving it running for days and days and days or that thing is drawing a lot more power than it should OR you have a weak battery.

OTOH I was under the impression that the computer in the truck monitored the battery voltage and started turning things off if it got too low. If that's the case, then either it's not working or more likely, your battery is dying on it's own. I've seen a LOT of bad batteries since Johnson Controls bought out most of the other battery manufacturers. I've had several that died the same day that I bought them! And several that would just short out and die while I was driving. I lost seven batteries in just over a year! I quit buying batteries from Discount Auto Parts and haven't had any more problems. BTW EVERY brand sold by DAP is made by JC. Lately I've been buying the Everstart (IIRC) brand from Costco and they seem to be holding up with no problem.

 

I have a 10.00 heated seat pad that plugs into the 12 volt outlet. I forget it's on and it kills my battery in a day or 2. My gps is always on also.

Is there an easy way to kill power to the plug and run a relay or something to kill it when the truck is off? I haven't taken the dash apart on this truck and don't know how accessable everything could be

 

IMO it wouldn't be hard to cut the wire going to the cig lighter, add in a relay and connect each side to the N.O. contacts. Then use one of the wires connecting to the Accessory circuit to drive the relay. You can probably pick up the Accessory Circuit power from the back of the radio and mount the relay in the same area. Just buy a decent relay and not some POS from Radio Shack.

 

I have one of those cheap front/rear cameras that has a tiny blue LED in the plug. If I leave it in the socket overnight in my `14 STX, the radio shuts off immediately after I turn off the key with the "system off to save battery" message.

 

how hard is it to get to the back of the radio, and does anyone know what color wire it is?

I like the relay idea, is there a switched wire that is easier to get at?