Battery Draw

[maplelexus]

Hello, 

I have a 2006 LX470 premium edition, my battery seems to be running down every 4 to 5 days if I don't run the engine. I even got a new batter recently. My total draw on the battery when the car has been parked for a while is around 180-190ma. When I performed a parasitic draw test I found that the ECU unit was drawing about 150ma when parked. Is this normal for 2006 LX470? any suggestions or recommendations? 

[eugene.s]

Hi, the obvious questions are:

(1) was is too cold in your place (comparing to the previous days/weeks) when your battery(ies) died (in the vast majority of cases, a poor battery would die in the extreme cold);

(2) how many miles did you drive a day back then (i.e. did your battery(ies) really have a chance to re-charge);

(3) how exactly did you do the parasitic draw test (it seems the ECU "shuts off" to an idle consumption in 5-15 mins or so after the engine was shut down -- before then, any measurements would be useless; people say one needs to monitor consumption for at least 30 mins thereafter; there is also a science about doing the measurements -- like where you connect devices and how you read them).

Less then a month ago it got unusually cold in my place (-30C and below), I had a drained battery (I had known it was dying, so that was not a big surprise). Replaced it with a quasi-new battery (my neighbor had purchased it "new" a year if not two ago; I had no chance to re-charge that battery before placing it on my vehicle; so, I took it as it was as it showed a green charge indicator) -- same result, a drained battery again (in a week). Then I got a completely new battery (just from the shop) and went to a (non-dealer) service, checked everything (they even took out my generator and checked it on a stand) and everything was OK.

No problems since then (though, it's been -30-35C a couple of nights since then). I guess, the matter was in poor batteries...which I would have not known were poor unless the unusual cold had kicked in...

As to power consumption level -- it really depends on how you measure it. When I had my problem, I googled a lot and there is apparently a science about how you test it...