Electrical... wierdness

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Zubby

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So have an interesting thing. I had a 'new battery installed' which i don't believe was new, so i ran into costco and picked up a new battery and dropped it in. All of my cold start issues have disappeared. It starts up .. as long as I am patient.

This happened this morning.. come out of the house, use the fob to unlock the door, it unlocks.. I get kids bolted in, and if I slide the key in the ignition and turn the key in like one motion.. I will get nothing. No dashboard lights. no interior lights. The fob doesn't work (but mind you it just did) my bt module that doubles as a voltmeter doesn't register at all. .. This is weird. Dead.
Pop the hood, check the battery - yep, its still there. Take the + off, and hear the sparky of it.. think.. wierd.. but not weird.. plug it back on.. everything works.. engine starts up with no hesitation. notice that there was an interior light on.. so that probably was on when the girls went to get their skates (hockey kids...) out of the truck last night about 9pm.. so 1 interior light on for 12 hours...

But I can't imagine that much of a draw on a new battery, and it wasn't unreasonably cold last night (2c). Security feature - I had an issue with my ford where if I was too quick to start that it would fail a security check.. or maybe there is something.. smart that it registered a battery drain and tripped.. something to kill the battery connection? But I didn't see anything.....

Any thoughts?
 

Geotrash

Dave
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So have an interesting thing. I had a 'new battery installed' which i don't believe was new, so i ran into costco and picked up a new battery and dropped it in. All of my cold start issues have disappeared. It starts up .. as long as I am patient.

This happened this morning.. come out of the house, use the fob to unlock the door, it unlocks.. I get kids bolted in, and if I slide the key in the ignition and turn the key in like one motion.. I will get nothing. No dashboard lights. no interior lights. The fob doesn't work (but mind you it just did) my bt module that doubles as a voltmeter doesn't register at all. .. This is weird. Dead.
Pop the hood, check the battery - yep, its still there. Take the + off, and hear the sparky of it.. think.. wierd.. but not weird.. plug it back on.. everything works.. engine starts up with no hesitation. notice that there was an interior light on.. so that probably was on when the girls went to get their skates (hockey kids...) out of the truck last night about 9pm.. so 1 interior light on for 12 hours...

But I can't imagine that much of a draw on a new battery, and it wasn't unreasonably cold last night (2c). Security feature - I had an issue with my ford where if I was too quick to start that it would fail a security check.. or maybe there is something.. smart that it registered a battery drain and tripped.. something to kill the battery connection? But I didn't see anything.....

Any thoughts?
Year and model? Sounds like the classic signs of a bad ground or bad battery cable. Both well-known issues on these trucks. The battery cables corrode from the inside out so they may look fine but not be fine. Do a search for 'big 3 upgrade' and read until your heart's content.
 
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Zubby

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2009 Yukon, just the basic one, nothing fancy. Ill do the search and read up on it - appreciated.
 

Doubeleive

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So have an interesting thing. I had a 'new battery installed' which i don't believe was new, so i ran into costco and picked up a new battery and dropped it in. All of my cold start issues have disappeared. It starts up .. as long as I am patient.

This happened this morning.. come out of the house, use the fob to unlock the door, it unlocks.. I get kids bolted in, and if I slide the key in the ignition and turn the key in like one motion.. I will get nothing. No dashboard lights. no interior lights. The fob doesn't work (but mind you it just did) my bt module that doubles as a voltmeter doesn't register at all. .. This is weird. Dead.
Pop the hood, check the battery - yep, its still there. Take the + off, and hear the sparky of it.. think.. wierd.. but not weird.. plug it back on.. everything works.. engine starts up with no hesitation. notice that there was an interior light on.. so that probably was on when the girls went to get their skates (hockey kids...) out of the truck last night about 9pm.. so 1 interior light on for 12 hours...

But I can't imagine that much of a draw on a new battery, and it wasn't unreasonably cold last night (2c). Security feature - I had an issue with my ford where if I was too quick to start that it would fail a security check.. or maybe there is something.. smart that it registered a battery drain and tripped.. something to kill the battery connection? But I didn't see anything.....

Any thoughts?
interior light will time out after 10-15 minutes and shut off, even if left on. or they should anyway, mine do on my 12
I found out after having my (viper) alarm going off every 15 minutes, my windows are tinted so I couldn't see the interior light on from the angle I was at from the outside, every 15 minutes the stupid alarm would go off and I would go out and reset it at first thinking it was just some random error but after a couple times and it being 15 minutes on the money I finally did a little more investigating and found the interior light on. the light being on was not what was triggering the alarm it was the light shutting off and interrupting the voltage which triggers the alarm.

but ya sounds like you are loosing the battery connection overnight which could leave enough of a connection to unlock the doors but then when it goes to draw power for a start it can't.
 
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