Slow battery death - Stereo related ???

[Ed Mulvaney]

Hello all,

I'm new here .. and to Subaru ownership!

I bought a cream puff 08 Legacy last November. It has 118k miles and was adult owned / garage kept. (All service records and one owner)

 

I noticed a loud "POP" when I turn my ignition key to the "ON" position.. the pop comes thru either the subwoofer or all the speakers.. its definitely an electrical pop thru the stereo/speakers.

As I don't drive the car but a couple short times a week.. the battery has slowly died. I replaced with a NEW battery in December. By April the new battery has been killed! AutoZone gave me another new one.

Yesterday that battery has been drained dead.

This pop occurs even if I don't use or power the stereo on at all.

 

I did notice that when I FADE to REAR and BALANCE to RIGHT the right rear door speaker sounds blown.. the rest sound fine..

 

I've read many of the post here, but didn't see anything I thought applied to my situation. I've recharged the battery and PULLED the fuse to the Radio/Nav

and the pop has stopped..

My 08 doesn't have Navigation, just the small display for MPG/TIME/TEMP ect.

Can anyone advise me on what to do??

I do enjoy listening to the stereo and I lost my display by pulling the fuse.

Thanks in advance for reading this thread and sharing your thoughts!

Cheers,

Ed

[cseagle08]

Is the entire stereo system / speakers factory? If anyone has changed anything it could be a shorted wire.

[Ed Mulvaney]

I believe they are all original.. It seems an older person owned this car. They warped the brake rotors and it came from Orlando, Fl. The car is so nice and the owner took it to the dealer for every service.. to me that "screams" older owner?

I'm 55 years old, so I have to be careful who I call old!

Ed

[cseagle08]

Make sure all the dome and courtesy light switches are off. Those darn things I always leave on and kill the battery in a day. The popping noise is suspicious because I've never seen or heard that on these cars.

 

You could always unplug the radio for a few days and see if the problem goes away. It's pretty easy to get the radio out. Few panels that pop off, 6 small screws.

[Ed Mulvaney]

The fuse pulled from the stereo/nav socket stopped the pop.. Its definitely a JOLT of electricity running thru the speakers as the key/power on occurs.. If I drove it more often it may not be an issue.. but I only drive it 10-30 miles a week.

It sucks!

I love this car!

[FAILBOT]

The two problems may or may not be related. You need to do a few test to determine the cause. Also what do you mean exactly when you say you drive it a couple of short times a week? Short distances? That can also cause an issue of not having the time required to recharge the battery to the previous point of when you started it causing a long drawn out discharge of the battery. Less likely but, possible. First test would be to check the running voltage of the system to eliminate a charging problem. Should be in the 13 to 14.5 VDC range. You've already eliminated the battery itself. If this test proves ok, then you need to do a parasitic drain test. Instead of explaining it, here is a link https://axleaddict.com/auto-repair/car-batterydrain

This will point you to which electrical component or circuit is causing the drain. If you don't have the equipment or skills to do this, then take it to a shop that does. Either a good mechanic or a mobile electronics tech.