Hello all, this is my first post. I am in need of help regarding an electrical issue plaguing my 2009 grand caravan.
My newish battery drains nightly.
The problem has been traced to the IOD 60a fuse. With this pulled, the draw is around 30ma - within specs.
With fuse installed, the ammeter shows 1.45A drawn for about 10 seconds, then 0.5A for about 10 seconds.
I know this fuse supports all feeds outside the ignition switch/// alarm, interior lights, radio, etc. There are countless circuits attached to this one fuse which are not in turn fused, which makes for a very difficult diagnosis.
I was hoping someone might have seen this same phenomenon, and can point me to the culprit(s).

Thank you in advance!

 

I'm an electrician and chased a parasitic drain on my 08 caravan for a long time. I pulled every fuse in the panel out one at a time. There is a waiting period if i remember correctly that your PCM uses a lot of "juice" before it calms down and the amp draw is minimal. Anyways I'll cut to the chase and tell you that I had several other problems like fuel pump stopped working, put a new one in ($350 for pump), then found the fuel pump relay wasn't working, so I put a jumper from an accessory fuse. This worked to solve my fuel pump issue. But the underlying problem was a defective PCM under the fuse panel. Replacing this solved my parasitic drain and other problems as well. I did a lot of research and found that there is a lot of problems with the PCM's from 2008-10. I was able to find one on Ebay for $200 that worked and solved all my electrical problems. Maybe this isn't your problem but at least you'll be aware that it could potentially solve it if you can't find it.Good luck.

 

You need to wait longer than 10 seconds to determine what the draw actually is. It’s common for the draw to exceed 30 milliamps for up to an hour or more after the key is turned off because the modules are still communicating.

Fuses M10 through M13 are powered by the IOD fuse - you can check for the source of the draw by pulling these.


Just FYI - what you’re describing is the Totally Integrated Power Module (TIPM) - except for the direct battery cable feeds, all the power for the van is distributed from here. It’s a separate module from the PCM (Powertrain Control Module) which handles operation of the engine and transmission systems.

 

Your absolutely correct. I thought of that a few hours later. But never got a chance to correct it. Thanks for correcting me! It was the TIPM

 

Its been too long since I've put this problem aside.
Thank-you to all who have responded. I really appreciate this. In the mean-term, I've been charging the battery every 5 days.

The TIPM actually was replaced earlier as my rear turn signal was giving us grief. It turns out, our car alarm and ability to manually shift with the gear selector returned after this replacement. The transmission was acting up as well and stuck in limp mode on occasion.

Now that the TIPM was replaced we encounter the parasitic battery drain.

It's winter here. I think a quick way to locate the problem is to use an infrared heat sensor tool, which I will rent. I'll park the van in my unheated car garage, and skulk around after the temperatues settle. I would imagine something will register that is consuming 1.4As.

 

I get what you’re trying to do with the temp gun but I doubt it’ll produce the result you’re expecting. Everything powered by the IOD fuse is inside the cabin so the temps of these devices will reflect the cabin temp with maybe a few degrees difference between them.

As I said before - fuses M10 through M13 are powered by the IOD fuse - perform the draw test again, making sure to wait at least 45 minutes for everything else to power down, then pull those fuses one at a time to determine which circuit the draw is isolated to.

The wiring diagram below shows the power distribution circuit in the TIPM for the IOD Fuse and what each fuse powers. Keep in mind your van may not have all of the accessories/devices shown. Whichever fuse drops the draw to less than 25mA is the circuit you need to focus on.