Sprinkles

I appreciate any advice or opinions that you might have concerning this mysterious electrical issue!

I have a 2008 EX-L with an aftermarket car alarm that was in the car when I bought it used. I have had an intermittent issue with the locks for a year or two and now I’m having issues with a draining battery.

A while ago, while driving, I noticed that the car doors would intermittently try to lock, say every 30 seconds or so while driving. Sometimes the issue would stop and not happen for months, and then start up again. When the locks were misbehaving, the driver’s side lock switch would not work, I could not lock or unlock from that button, and the car would repeatedly try and lock. The other door switch would work properly.

In the last six months, I’ve had three or four times where the battery was dead in the morning without explanation. The battery is supposedly okay when checked by roadside assistance. I was told the starter was requiring too much current to start and it would need to be replaced. I did that and just had an almost dead battery again today.

This is a second car that gets driven a couple of times a week and usually shorter distances (15 minutes or less). It only has 140,000 km on it and I’d like to have it for a couple more years (given the low mileage) but I don’t want to keep throwing money after it if it’s going to having electrical issues.

I haven’t seen people discuss this particular problem before. Could the dying battery be from the repeated door locking? I’m not sure if it’s trying to lock intermittently at night some times, and I’ve never heard the click of it locking while the car was off and the key out.

Could it be from the aftermarket car alarm? I deactivated it but left it all plugged in to see if that would make a difference but the battery was almost dead this morning. Could it be an issue within the door lock mechanism on that driver’s side? Is it going to cost a fortune to have dealership mechanics start fussing around with diagnostic tools?

Thanks for any advice!

Colin42

I would start by unplugging the alarm and seeing if that is causing the problem