Door ajar light and battery drains

[RevRico]

I thought I joined this forum when I bought my ranger, but I guess I didn't.

I have an 02 Ranger FX4, manual, with 208k miles on it, Kenwood aftermarket stereo. I use it sparingly, like bought it Feb 2018 and only put 2,000 miles on it sparingly. The entire time I've owned it, the door ajar light has stayed on while the truck is running. I pulled the bulb for the domelight when WD40 on the latch only worked until you opened the passenger door again. There are no lights or noises in the truck when it is parked, other than the blinky "theft" light on the dash.

Around November, I started coming out to a dead truck after it sat for a few days. Most times I could just roll start it, but a few times it was totally dead. Went and got a replacement battery in February when I got sick of dealing with the charger or roll starting it every morning.

About a week after I got the new battery, I went out to leave, got about half a crank and then absolutely nothing. No signs of life, no noise, nothing. Jiggling the battery cables, then jumping it, worked to get it started. I replaced the terminals and cut off some nasty bits at the end of the battery cables when I did that, then promptly let the truck sit for a week because it blew a brake line and i hate brake lines.

This brings us to yesterday. I put the truck on the charger for an hour or so, got it started, then drove it around for an hour and parked it. After 30 minutes, it started fine. 4 hours later it started fine. another 2 hours and it started fine. Cool, cleaning up the cables fixed it, everything is working. Wrong. This morning, it didn't have enough charge left to start, but I was able to catch it in gear and start it up. This morning when it wouldn't start, i saw 12.05 volts across the battery. I tried doing a parastitic drain test with my DMM, but I don't have enough hands to do it by myself, and the positive terminal is a real PITA to get on since I cut corrosion off the wires.

I am now in the camp of something is causing a massive drain on my system. Could it be tied to the door ajar light never going off, and if so, why did it wait until winter to show its ugly head? Or is it more likely the GEM/Battery saver relay that everyone else seems to have problems with?

 

[RevRico]

I just saw something in another thread... Back around September or so, when it was still on the old battery, I had a problem with my turn signals.

I would flick the switch, and they would come on, but flick really fast like a dead bulb OR not flash a dash light. Lasted about a month then went back to normal. Not sure if it's relevant or not, but thought I'd add the detail.

 

[ericbphoto]

I would start by fixing the door ajar problem. The indicator bulb for that isn't much of a load. But if it thinks the door is open, the gem is probably never putting things in sleep mode. So you have more current draw than you should.

 

[RevRico]

All I've found for fixing the door ajar is to spray WD40 into the latches, and that works for like a day on my truck. I'd love to fix it to have a dome light again, but haven't seen how anywhere.

I also don't understand why it would have taken 9 months from purchase to start this sort of problem. There was a Duracell battery from 2/17 in the truck when I bought it in 2/18 and I didn't start having problems till 11/18 when it started getting cold.

Edit: and 2 hours after I ran it this morning, it's dead again.

 

[Dirtman]

Well you could keep spraying wd40 at things but replacing the door latch switches would be the more logical solution.

And as eric said, the door ajar system is keeping the gem awake which will drain the battery. Also you've more than likely ruined your battery. Car batteries cannot handle being constantly drained and charged like a deep cycle.

Get 2 new door switches, charge the battery the best you can and then run it over to autozone or advance auto and have them load test the battery but be prepared to buy a new battery.

 

[ericbphoto]

The constant drain on your battery was slowly destroying it. It would discharge deeply, then you would charge it. Then the cycle repeated. Over and over again. Each time the battery got a little bit worse. In the cold, the conditions appeared to be worse. That's just because of the effect cold has on the chemical reactions in the battery. It's unfortunate. But it happens. Hopefully, fixing the door switches will fix the whole problem.

 

[RevRico]

Battery luckily has a 36 month warranty, I was expecting to get a new one of those but I want to fix this first.

The 02 has switches in the rear doors to, doesn't it ? Not at rock auto they don't. Ok, new switches ordered for both doors

 

[RonD]

You need a volt meter to test battery and charging system, its very easy to do
If you just replace batteries or alternators you end up chasing your tail, $10 volt meter will save you hundreds down the road on alots of car stuff


To replace door switch, on front doors, you need to remove the latch, the door switch is at the bottom of the latch(which is why it fails so often), you need to twist it to remove it and then twist the new one in

Water and dirty run down inside the door and inside the door latch and it all ends up inside the door switch, its just a ball and spring setup so it sticks, the WD40 runs down inside the latch and sometimes gets it unstuck


If you remove door panel you can reach in and UNPLUG the door switch, that disables that switch, GEM Module will now think that door is always closed, so no more light, IF............thats the switch that is stuck

So test that FIRST so you know which door switch is causing the problem