rofl, I know this post is a few years, but come on. What about the clockspring in the steering wheel? I've read that my wife's durango had a TSB for something like that. It's probably a connection issue not a charge issue. There's probably diodes that prevent the capacitors from draining like that.

 

Metal:

For the symptoms described, clock spring failure is a common remedy. The $110 they are quoting is most likely an hours labor.

Usually, if you have them do the repair, this is merged into the bill as part of the labor. My guess is around $250 total for the fix if the CS is the culprit.

Don