Everything seems to be fine on the fuses and wiring front. No aftermarket accessories have been installed in the recent past either.
BHPian HEMIorange recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
I own a 13 month old Ciaz Alpha AT with 12k km on the odo. I don’t use it very frequently but make sure that the engine runs at least 10 mins for every one week of it being stationary and take it on a drive if the stationary period extends to two week. On 1st April 2021 I drove it for a nice 85 kms with no problems with the battery whatsoever and no visible signs of it being weak. On 5th april, when I was taking it out, the car refused to turn on and started behaving rather weird. The MID started giving messages like “clean parking sensor”, “Service ESP system”, the gear position indicator was showing nothing but a hyphen, and every time i pressed the brakes the lights in the instrument panel went out.
When I switched the ignition switch to off and pressed the brake pedal the mid displayed “shift to park and push to start” even when the car was already in park. The interior lights were flickering and within minutes after me struggling with the car, it refused to get locked, though the alarm was getting armed and buzzing just fine. Checked all the fuses and inspected the wirings, everything was fine. Finally I narrowed it down to a weak battery and asked for assistance from my neighbor and tried jump starting it with another battery and viola, it comes to life instantly. Continued to observed it daily and the battery worked just fine so decided to give a three day gap and today the battery is completely dead. Even the central locking isn’t working.
I would have expected the battery to go weak if the car had stayed put for a long period of time, but that wasn’t the case. The battery showed no signs of weakness and was working absolutely fine before. As the car gets parked in stilt under shade I didn’t miss anything that might have left turned on which would have drained the battery.
My fellow BHPians please throw some light on what could have gone wrong.
PS: The battery wasn’t dry, checked the electrolyte level, I don’t use any accessory apart from windtone horns which were replaced months ago.
Keyword: Curious case of battery drain on my Maruti Ciaz