A CR-V came into the shop with a complaint that it went dead every few days. After confirming that the battery is good, the next step is to check for a parasitic draw on the battery, which is when something is using power when the car is off. There was a draw, and the first step is to remove any aftermarket accessories. This car had an aftermarket remote start system.
Factory accessory remote start systems are a lot easier to remove, because they’re designed exactly for that model and everything just plugs in. On aftermarket remote starts, everything is patched in at various places. I had to remove and repair close to 20 different wires where wired had been spliced in various ways. And as expected, with the remote start removed, the parasitic draw was gone.
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-Dan
Mechanical Malarkey 