one_quik_pony Posted August 26, 2008 Report Share Posted August 26, 2008 After more poking-around with my multimeter...attempting to track down my battery drain, I ran across a strange black box located above and behind my glove box door... According to their website, this is used by Hertz to monitor your rental vehicle's location, and speed. These have been used to issue citations to people who abuse speed limits in designated locations. They can also record cross country trips, and out of the country visits. However, even more interesting than that, was what happened when I disconnected this wire... And my key-off current draw went from this... To this... A reduction of nearly 850 mA, or the difference between not-starting and starting my hot rod this weekend! PLEASE look under the dash behind the glovebox to see if you still have AIR IQ installed, and post your info. This may be a significant part of our battery discharge issue. :happy feet: UPDATE: All electronics now in "sleep mode"...down to 24 mA! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColdwaterHotrod Posted August 26, 2008 Report Share Posted August 26, 2008 EXCELLENT CATCH! THANKS FOR THE INFO ..... I WILL PASS THIS ON Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GT-H #387 Posted August 26, 2008 Report Share Posted August 26, 2008 This is excelent information! I don't remember seeing that "Black Box" behind my glove box when I removed the airbag cover. I'll have to check it out this weekend. This still doesn't explain why some standard GT's are having the very same issue. There may be more than one problem causing the battery drain. Bryan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
one_quik_pony Posted August 26, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 26, 2008 This still doesn't explain why some standard GT's are having the very same issue. There may be more than one problem causing the battery drain. Bryan Oh I am positive there are more issues. This is most likely isolated to the GT-H crowd, hence my posting it only in this forum...and hopefully may be the fix for those WITHOUT the factory battery-drain bug, and give a little help to those WITH the factory bug. I think this was the fix for my GT-H. I am eagerly awaiting feedback from other owners, to see if this was a random occurrence, or maybe common practice to leave the system in the car, and leave it active. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTH391 Posted August 27, 2008 Report Share Posted August 27, 2008 I will take a look at it this weekend. I had no problems with drain until two months ago. I put a trickle charger on it and brought it back. After reading all the posts, I unlock both doors (in the garage), turn off the radio and the Sirius unit. So far so good, but I still have that nagging feeling. I keep jumper cables in the trunk just in case. Is it easily apparent which wire to disconnect? I see the picture you posted but don't want to make an error. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffJ Posted August 27, 2008 Report Share Posted August 27, 2008 I just checked. Nothing like that under my dash or behind the glove box. Of course my sirius was stripped from my car by Hertz, so if my car had that, I'm sure they stripped it out at the same time. (Hertz did provide me with a brand new Sirius kit for my car which I have not installed) I have had the battery issue also. I keep a trickle charger on my car. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HARALD KELLEY Posted August 27, 2008 Report Share Posted August 27, 2008 Number #50 does not have the device. I do have the Sirus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Son of GT Posted August 27, 2008 Report Share Posted August 27, 2008 Someone at the Hertz location that de-fleeted that car screwed up. As a former Maintenance Manager for both Hertz and the "We try harder" guys in Los Angeles, I can tell you that those AirIQ trackers are to be removed from all cars during the disposal process, and someone overlooked that one. AirIQ is installed in only, but in every "risk" car. By defination a risk car is any rental car that has the potental to abused and or stolen during is rental life which is typically 9 months or 27,000 miles depending on the program negotiated between the automobile manufacturer and the rental company's corporate office. And those program terms can be modified on the fly too. Let's say that FoMoCo has a glut of Taurus's sitting on their used car lots across the country, and Hertz and or Avis is about to return hundreds or thousands of Taurus's back to them because they are coming up on their program mileage or time caps. FoMoCo will contact the rental car companies and tell them to keep the Taurus's in service beyond the program caps until further notice. That's one way they can control the supply and demand flow of a particular model of car in the used car market. Additionally, some risk cars are outright owned by the rental car company because the manufacturer does not want to deal with a thrashed car coming back to them for liquidation through their dealer networks or through the auction network. I can guarantee you that all the Hertz Vettes have AirIQ trackers mounted in them, and any of those cars can be tracked via AirIQ's secured website anytime the rental agency wants to. Avis/Budget (same company now) used to install them in their "Highline" rental Jaguars, and we had one stolen during a rental. I accessed the website and we located the beacon/car sitting a few miles off the Los Angeles coast heading out to sea. We contacted L.A.P.D. who inturn contacted the Coast Guard. The CG boarded a freighter that was bound for South America and advised the captain to return back to the harbor where both the L.A.P.D. and Custom Agents unloaded the containers and found the Jaguar sitting in the front half of a cargo container that had three other stolen cars stuffed behind it. A month or so ago, one of our TS members posted a video of him doing a series of massive doughnuts in one of the Hertz rental Vettes. If the Hertz rental location for his car did their dilligance, they could download all the data they need from the tracker by date and time and then go right back to the person that rented the car to hold them responsible for the abuse. But the rental staff and management at each location are so busy, they hardly have anytime to do that. You should contact your nearest Hertz airport location (the airport locations are the central hubs for all the other non airport locations) and tell them that you have have one of their AirIQ trackers. They may pay you to return it as they are quite pricey to them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
one_quik_pony Posted August 27, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 27, 2008 Son of GT... Very interesting and informative...thank you for posting! I found very little information on the AirIQ unit while searching the net. I could not even find one on eBay! This clears up some of the mystery regarding it. It has now been three days since I disconnected the unit, and my trusty multimeter shows no appreciable battery discharge yet, which makes me believe that the AirIQ was MY issue. Sadly, the factory "bug" still remains a mystery. A little extra cash for turning in the unit would be nice...but if my GT-H was the only one to escape with the AirIQ unit intact, that may be worth a few MORE $$ in years to come! Now if I could only obtain the software to make it functional...Hmmmmmm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTH391 Posted August 28, 2008 Report Share Posted August 28, 2008 I checked my car last night. No unit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96season Posted August 29, 2008 Report Share Posted August 29, 2008 none on mine...but my 06h can now sit for at least 3wks and no drain (vs 3days before) after i began to turn off sirius unit and radio before exiting vehicle i swear it will never sit longer than that as long as i am alive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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