<story><title>I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days</title><url>https://davidmuller.github.io/posts/2023/04/10/how-i-fixed-a-parasitic-drain-in-408-days.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Dalewyn</author><text>Tangent, but what&amp;#x27;s the rationale for car doors requiring slams? They are the only door I know, at least in common, daily life contexts, that require slamming them with the force of Thor to properly close them.</text></item><item><author>civilized</author><text>My wife and I gave our old car to her parents. In the subsequent years, its battery kept dying and we had to go over to their place and jump it. Never happened in the prior 7 years we&amp;#x27;d owned the car. The mechanic said nothing wrong with the battery, but suggested there might be a parasitic drain somewhere.&lt;p&gt;A few days later, we were visiting them. I looked at the car and saw the door closed, but not properly latched and ever-so-slightly ajar. You know, that half-closed thing car doors do when you don&amp;#x27;t close them hard enough.&lt;p&gt;It turns out someone, possibly my son, had been not closing the door completely. This did not keep the lights on or cause any other visible sign, as it would in some cars.&lt;p&gt;After I told them to slam the door fully shut, never a problem again for 2 years and counting.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dTal</author><text>At a guess it has something to do with needing to withstand 70+ mph winds. There needs to be considerable force holding the door against its seals at all times, and in a mechanical latching system this force must come from a spring, which must be charged with energy via a good slam.&lt;p&gt;However there are minivans with electronically operated sliding doors, which either power the latch allowing you to gently close the door, or (going further) powering the entire closing operation at a button push. I surmise the reason we see it moreso on minivans is because 1) it is particularly difficult to work up enough energy to properly latch a sliding door, due to losses from the 90-degree change in direction at the end, and 2) violently slamming the sliding doors on a minivan is very dangerous to children&amp;#x27;s fingers.</text></comment>
<story><title>I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days</title><url>https://davidmuller.github.io/posts/2023/04/10/how-i-fixed-a-parasitic-drain-in-408-days.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Dalewyn</author><text>Tangent, but what&amp;#x27;s the rationale for car doors requiring slams? They are the only door I know, at least in common, daily life contexts, that require slamming them with the force of Thor to properly close them.</text></item><item><author>civilized</author><text>My wife and I gave our old car to her parents. In the subsequent years, its battery kept dying and we had to go over to their place and jump it. Never happened in the prior 7 years we&amp;#x27;d owned the car. The mechanic said nothing wrong with the battery, but suggested there might be a parasitic drain somewhere.&lt;p&gt;A few days later, we were visiting them. I looked at the car and saw the door closed, but not properly latched and ever-so-slightly ajar. You know, that half-closed thing car doors do when you don&amp;#x27;t close them hard enough.&lt;p&gt;It turns out someone, possibly my son, had been not closing the door completely. This did not keep the lights on or cause any other visible sign, as it would in some cars.&lt;p&gt;After I told them to slam the door fully shut, never a problem again for 2 years and counting.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>noizejoy</author><text>I think one of the reasons is air pressure inside the car.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve always found it amazing how much less slamming the doors needed when a window was left wide open and the air inside the car could escape freely.</text></comment>