2007 Is250 Awd Battery Problems?

[NJLexGirl]

I joined this forum in the hopes that someone else has experienced the issue I just experienced with my 2.5 month old 2007 IS250 AWD. (This is my first post!) I was away for business, so the car sat idle in my garage for 11 days (although I don't drive it daily anyway). On Day 11, I found that the battery had completely discharged. Lexus Roadside Assistance sent someone over and jumped the car, and it started up right away. I let it run for 20-30 minutes, and believed that would be the end of it. The next evening, I went to take the car out, and the car was dead again. Fast forward through several calls over that night and the next morning to Roadside Assistance, which included 2 different guys coming to try to jump the car, and the car still would not start either time. Roadside Assistance suggested trying to reset the security system, but that didn't seem to work either. Finally, a Lexus technician came to my house to work on the car. (Awesome service by Englewood Lexus in NJ!) He replaced the car's battery and ran some diagnostics. He thought maybe one of the fuses was drawing too much from the battery (in the radio panel?), but suggested I take it in for service to be sure. The dealership found nothing wrong with any fuses, etc, or anything else, for that matter. Here are the theories that came out of the service visit, and a subsequent conversation with a different Lexus dealership's service department:

- The car was idle for too long and the car's battery just died, which is "normal" (?!?!?!) after sitting for almost 2 weeks (could this possibly be true?!); or

- The battery was drained because the SmartKey (upstairs one level in my apartment building, which is constructed completely out of concrete, fyi) was trying to communicate with the car for 11 days; or

- Just happened to get a bad battery.

There is no reason, as far as I'm concerned, that a 2.5 month old car with less than 2700 miles on it would already have a battery issue (unless the battery was just bad to begin with). I'm having a hard time believing that 11 days of no use would drain the battery. It also doesn't make any sense to me that the keys would (or even could) be draining the battery for 11 days. (I was told later that the car goes into passive mode after 1-2 days of it "searching" for the key.)

Has anyone else experienced this? Or heard any of these reasons? I'm trying to find out how to avoid this in the future.

[bartkat]

The smart key has nothing to do with it. The battery shouldn't go dead in that period of time. Seeing as how it wouldn't hold a charge after starting and running, it was probably a bad battery. It happens. Auto Zone and those places can test batteries, and Lexus should be able to do that as well.

[gordonw]

I would agree its not the smartkey. I would say its its most likely a bad battery, probably a bad cell. I wouldn't say its 100 percent a bad battery, just most likely, because it not uncommon for todays cars to drain its battery just sitting in the driveway. The battery will discharge on its own and there is a small charge powering your cars electronics. We have to every so often charge up the batteries on cars we have in our showroom because they aren't driven. I've seen other dealers hook their showroom cars to trickle chargers so they don't have to jump start them. I'd wait and see how the new battery holds up. If it doesn't, I'd recommend gettig a trickle charger.

[tex2670]

No way its the Smart Key. It's true that a car sitting idle for that long could have the battery drain, but not such a new battery. Agreed you probably had a bad battery; or, somehow the car's ignition was in the "acc" or "on" postion last time you used it.

[CrunchySkippy]

Agreed you probably had a bad battery; or, somehow the car's ignition was in the "acc" or "on" postion last time you used it.

Good point about the "acc" position. Also, did you happen to have anything plugged into the lighter (i.e. cell phone charger)? I would have thought that the car cuts power to the lighter when "off", but perhaps it doesn't if it was in "acc" mode.

Let us know how the new battery works out.

[gordonw]

Agreed you probably had a bad battery; or, somehow the car's ignition was in the "acc" or "on" postion last time you used it.

Good point about the "acc" position. Also, did you happen to have anything plugged into the lighter (i.e. cell phone charger)? I would have thought that the car cuts power to the lighter when "off", but perhaps it doesn't if it was in "acc" mode.

Let us know how the new battery works out.

Good point on the cig lighter thing. We see alot of cheaply made phone chargers shorting out fuses or creating electrical noise.

[NJLexGirl]

The car definitely wasn't on in the "Acc" mode, but I can't recall positively whether or not anything was in the cigarette charger - occasionally I do have the charger plugged in for my cell phone, but I try to leave everything off/unplugged when I park the car. Six days into the new battery and so far so good! But I've been using the car almost every day this week.

Thanks for all of your input. I am OK with it being just a bad battery, as long as it doesn't happen again. Both dealerships I spoke to also suggested the trickle charger. I will hold off for now, but I may get one in advance of a long vacation I will be taking in November. I'll keep you posted!

[Tysonlegion]

Hey I have an old Lexus is250 .... and I’m having problems with the power being drained from it in just a matter of 24 hours ?! ... I need solutions ...there’s mod I’ve dine to the car ... whole middle console is after market ..mirror belongs to a 2013 Lexus is250 ...and I also added mid pipes and an after market filter intake system ....  I’m thinking it’s the mirror and the middle console ... but ...I unplugged the mirror and it still drains the battery.... what can I do to counter this or fix it ?!  Also ...it’s a new tested battery and I changed out the alternator battery too all been tested already 

[HeenaM]

We've got the same problem. 

We had an electric specialist out and have learned that there's a parasitic drain from the onboard body control module which is discharging the vehicle when it's switched off. The body control module also powers the audio module which is another item that can sometimes have this parasitic drain problem. 

Either way it needs repairing or replacing and 'regular' garages don't seem to have the software or coding skills needed to fix it. So it will have to go to Lexus & that's going to cost a lot! :(

Has anyone managed to remedy the problem? If so, how and how much did it cost?