Howdy, was just on here lately with a sad tale of new truck and battery running down. After much searching, talking to my mechanic and two dealerships, and extensive internet searching, may have found the problem, testing it now.

Possible Reason for Drain: Key Fob talking to vehicle all night. Sounds silly but you can find many references to that on the net. Vehicle never goes to sleep, stays ready to start at all times. The key fob answer sounded reasonable to me since I can be in the kitchen and press the lock button, the vehicle locks and honks. That signal is through three walls, a hurricane proof garage door (live in Rockport) and ten feet to vehicle parked in drive, so fairly strong.

Possible Solution: RFID pouch for fob. Bought an RFID pouch from Amazon and put fob in it.

Possible Way to Early for Long Term Fix Results: Put the fob in the pouch. Went out to the vehicle, nothing, zip, zero, nada. Vehicle door would not open, not receiving signal from fob, so there is that.

What is Next: Going to see if this works, will let ya know, this battery drain thing has been driving me (no pun intended) crazy, hope this is a fix!

I have a 2018 Ford F150, so a different vehicle manufacturer and model than yours. There are two "modes" for my fob. One is pushing the buttons on the fob and that works from a pretty far distance and through walls. If I am starting my truck using the push button in the truck I have to have the fob really close to the center console, a couple feet. I normally have my fob in my right front pocket. A few times I have had the fob in my left front pocket and sometimes its close enough to start and sometimes it says no key fob detected. Just illustrating how close mine has to be. When the fob is in really close proximity to your truck I could see how it would be active or on alert. If your fob was keeping your truck active or on alert from inside your house someone could break into your truck start it then drive off which wouldn't make sense.

I understand what you're saying and there may be something to it, but I'm not sure I buy it completely.

Weird.

I can leave my key in my truck and it does not do this.
Should definitely post this to the Auto Board. I've never heard of this being an issue and known lots of folks that keep keys within "range" of their cars of all makes and models.

This really sounds like some other kind of electrical gremlin that is still going to be an issue moving forward.

I have a 2018 F150. The key fob at night is hanging on a hook just inside the door of the garage. Maybe 10 ft from truck. Have never had an issue.

I had that problem in my F350. I had installed a new nav unit and cell phone booster. Found that even though I turned them both off they both drew a small amperage and if I did not drive it often they would drain the battery.

OnlyForNow: Howdy, it is weird, but with all of the stuff on vehicles now was worth an inexpensive try. Also kinda like Gunny said about his F350, my wife has a Mercedes 300 GLC, these vehicles have a known battery drain problem, easy to find on the net, so we keep a battery maintainer on her car all the time. It would be a pain if driven daily, but it is not. So with all that is going on, I'll give this a shot and report back.

I'm convinced they program this stuff so it fails in so many years so some IC circuit drains power to keep it active.
I read a short deal about some electronic guru that says he has found out that Garmin and Hummingbird have circuits in their depth finders that meant to make them crash after so many years. Who knows.

Planned obsolescence is definitely a thing...

Gunny456: Howdy, I dunno if it is done on purpose (or propoise as we say in Rockport) but I think the electronic proliferation of devices is beyond the manufacturers capability to fully understand the total integration of all of these parts and pieces. There are now hundreds of thousands of programs and interfaces that must always work together, impossible to test them all in the number of varied ways the vehicle can or might be used.

We have built ourselves and electronic prison, a comfortable one most times, but we are still held hostage by the technology! I could not navigate San Antonio with Apple Maps and Siri, Sorry, just could not.

My Mercedes 450 did this. You have to click the fob twice to disable the feature. Two honks instead of one.
No issues after Mercedes service told me this.
I've got a new F350 with the fob too. Need to do some research on that one.

You are right, 100%. I always harken back to a late-90's U-Haul I drove cross-country. (Never made it). Was pleased to get it and see that it only had 5K miles on the odometer. Left me at the side of the Interstate with what I later found out was a 'bad chip' that flagged a minor emissions faulty reading. Shut the whole vehicle down. Have been a skeptic ever since.

Honestly think cars from the 2000's (pre screens/infotainment) would be better and cheaper to maintain than buying and swapping these depreciating POS new cars and trucks these days. All the tech and gadgets are great until they're not. And everything's made now for consumerism

/end old man yelling at clouds rant

I had a 2021 F150 that would randomly have the headlights come on when the truck was parked. Battery kept draining overnight. It took multiple trips to the dealership and them keeping it for an entire month to figure out the problem. They finally got it fixed and it's been fine ever since.

Howdy Ags, I know this Key Fob in RFID pouch solution is pretty weird, so I am posting my only explanation.

Mark Fairchild said:

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Howdy Ags, I know this Key Fob in RFID pouch solution is pretty weird, so I am posting my only explanation.

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If it's fairly new wouldn't the dealer warranty this problem instead of you having to fight it?