I remember Eric O's video containing his feelings pertaining to aftermarket add-ons! One of his best videos!

In retirement I like to find these informative little channels. I must be weird! I'd rather watch this than some Hollywood blockbuster.

@PineHollowAutoDiagnostics

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you! One can learn so much on KZread... 🙂

When I saw that shoddy wiring and fuse, I thought it was going to the radio. Good find and persistent diagnosis. 👍🏼👍🏼

@bigrockk2980

2 жыл бұрын

Me too :)

@BoB4jjjjs

2 жыл бұрын

I thought radio, then I remembered it was disconnected! So I thought it was maybe hired and a tracking device fitted. However, when I saw the device, it was bigger than the ones I have seen. So it threw me off the scent! :-D

Dealerships sell these as an add on at point of sale and make a huge mark up on them. NEVER EVER EVER get the GPS tracking on your vehicle!! Great work Ivan.

Nice catch. Good thing you are always thorough when checking. I guess the visual inspection finds the aftermarket stuff. Looks like it's more of an immobilizer than tracking device. 😂😂

It would be interesting to hear the story behind that strange little box. Like who put it there and why

@JoePJack1

2 жыл бұрын

Handicapped conversion vans are very expensive, most likely it was a condition required by the finance company.

@cclngthr

2 жыл бұрын

@@JoePJack1 Most finance companies require a CPS device to allow for the loan to go through. These vans cost upwards to $80,000 new

@JoePJack1

2 жыл бұрын

@@cclngthr pretty sure that’s exactly what I said….

@cclngthr

2 жыл бұрын

@@JoePJack1 I added the actual cost of the modification plus the cost of the vehicle. I did these modifications to vans for several years in the summer months when I was not teaching. I worked at a shop that did these mods.

We had a used car lot, near my shop, that sold cars to people with bad credit.A large deposit was required.They installed trackers that used gps and cellular to find the car, if payments were late, and shut the car down remotely. People bought a car, from a private party and the unit turned it off. The car was having dead batteries before that. This video reminded me of that. That lot sold a lot of cars multiple times.

When you uncovered the splice i knew right away it was a dealer financial lender installed tracker.

Just ordered my Platinum S10! Can't wait till it comes! Will be nice to finally have a REAL scanner with bi-directional control/testing.

I install a crap ton of those gps units with the starter kill . The one I use is way smaller that that and I only had one fail . Not the units fault the customer jumped it backwards . The hacks that are in a hurry to install these and just jam a test light into every wire until they find a constant hot and ground to whatever . And makes the installers that actually take time and pride in their work look 👀 bad . Great video Ivan as always !! 🤓

@Cheepchipsable

2 жыл бұрын

Yes,they tend to see the failed units rather than the working ones, plus the bad installs. I've had plenty of vehicles with after market alarms that lasted 20 years or more.

@robertmedina6875

2 жыл бұрын

Heck ya Joesph your right!! We need more installers that take pride in there work like you do!!

Ivan, great diagnostics. I have been in the fleet repair business for 40 years and have been involved with many aftermarket Companies that sell and install GPS and tracking devices on vehicles. Most are cheaply made and of course do fail. I have had to replace many during the 1 year warranty period mostly because they stop functioning but a few that caused batteries to drain overnight. I had one that caused a Chevrolet pickup to stop running because it interfered and disrupted the fuel injection system. One tracking device installed by a third party installer was powered from a very bad hookup to the power distribution box and caused a severe overheating condition and melted the power distribution box. Was caught in time before the truck started on fire. A total mess. A constant issue when you have a fleet of thousands of vehicles with mandatory GPS installation.

Good detective work. You tracked down the tracker. Too bad you had to remove the door panel, but that's part of the process of elimination.

Perhaps it was installed by a used car dealer? It is standard if there is a scammy loan on a vehicle that the dealer expects to be defaulted.

@scottc8876

2 жыл бұрын

My thoughts exactly.

You should take interest in how Brainability, the company that does the modification to these vans. They install powered ramps and door systems. The power ramps relay into the parking brake and ignition to turn on the power to the ramp itself. The parking brake switch is used to relay the main power to the ramp to make it safer to the user (so the vehicle does not move). I used to build this kind of equipment for people on the side in the summer when I was not teaching.

Always trying to better my Auto Electric Diagnostic skills, thank you PHAD for another great diagnostic video.

amazing Ivan it's got to feel good to help so many people

Great job, especially showing us step by step, and coherent, thanks.

You know how Eric O feels about aftermarket add ons... Lots of work and time just to find out someone's been meddling where someone had not oughta been.. Great diag!

@adamtrombino106

2 жыл бұрын

BTW, they have that module on a 25 amp fuse, and no relay. Look at the gauge of those wires! You gonna tell me that they can carry 25 amps at 14 odd volts? You think that module is gonna last long even putting 20 amps through it? This is why Chrysler modules fail like no other.

Another great diagnosis Ivan! Interested to see more of the thermal cam use for diagnosing current draw. Agree, poorly splicing in aftermarket crap messes up the car 9 times out of 10 and should definitely be avoided. Cheers!

I found that ARA sells those units. The system was developed by Larry Carter who is in the automotive and lending industry. The uses listed are as has been posted for auto dealers, rental companies, lenders and tracking of teen and elderly drivers. It is cell phone based and is supposed to read the voltage and power down when the engine isn't running.

@MTLeopold

2 жыл бұрын

I wonder if the owner knew they were lo-jacked?

Hunted parasitic draw for over a month on newly purchased, previously owned Dodge Journey. Had all fuses out, still the draw. Finally found red wire on battery wire between battery and strut tower block. Led to locator starter-disable relay. Lots of fun!! Loved your video and the same problem!!

Great job Ivan. Thanks for Sharing!

That was a great process to find the issue. I always appreciative your approach to the diag.

As you always suggest dont mess with factory wirring...great example as always..cheers ivan👍

Hummmm not a NPR. It's a PLO... Parts left over. Love your videos and repair process.

@PineHollowAutoDiagnostics

2 жыл бұрын

"Negative Parts Required" ;)

@larrystephens7437

2 жыл бұрын

@@PineHollowAutoDiagnostics 🤣 Nailed it!!

Nice video! Right before you found that crap,I was like their has to be something else and bam you found it! Awesome job Ivan!!

Thanks Ivan, nice diag. Always learning something from your videos!

for a second there, I thought I had a cricket in my house.. 4:45

Well done Ivan as always.

Awesome troubleshooting boss!

Another great lesson.

Great work detective!

Wow Ivan up with the crickets song and great find! It pays to dig:)

I have been putting off finding the para-draw in my Jeep WJ for three years. I drive maybe three times a month. Every two weeks to get groceries and a trip to see my Doctor. I have a trickle charger on it. I did that amp draw test and I'm at .350 milliamps!!! yeah, . . . .wow. I should just feel for something warm, LOL. And yes, I let it sit and watched everything go to sleep and verified everything is off. I'm actually a retired mechanic but, haven't turned a wrench in 20yrs and I don't bend like I use to. Anyway, nicely done. First time watching one of your videos. Good stuff, subbed. This is my wake-up call to fix this before winter sets in. I live in Alaska and once the cold sets in, you either put it off another year or deal with potential frostbite trying to fix it. I don't have a garage.

@PineHollowAutoDiagnostics

2 жыл бұрын

Welcome! Yeah working outside in the cold is not fun ❄️

Well done Ivan.

Great job

Nice connection they made for the owner. It's truly hard to believe installers today can justify to do that crap work on a new vehicle. It makes sense if its a temporary wiring job to get to the next repair shop when out in the boondocks but to do that quality of work a 4th grader could do on a new vehicle is truly reckless. Great diag Ivan.

Nice work!

I thought this may stump you but I was wrong, well done!

I love these who done it videos. Excellent video Ivan. I’m at the part of the video where your taking off the carpet floor plastic molding and something is telling me the dead radio has something to do with the draw. Damn, I was close. The tracking device is keeping the vehicle from being stolen. Oh man, now for a few hundred dollars more than the ThinkTool ProS I can get the ThinkTool Platinum S10, hmmmm, decisions decisions.

That was badass. Thanks Ivan!

Ivan. I loved that diag. Good chase. Sure need those wiring diagrams. I got a 1 year subscription from Mitchell. Already have used it. Was only $29.95 - a real Bargain. Thanks for helping me become somewhat of a good mechanic on my "bucket of bolts" 2007 LaCrosse. Have kept it in operation for 12 years. In the past, "Pre Ivan," I spent a TON of money on repairs - now I can do those repairs myself. Many thanks.

@PineHollowAutoDiagnostics

2 жыл бұрын

👌

Love the spooky lighting intro Ivan! Lol🎃

Maybe his wife keeping tabs on him😆😆. Great job again Ivan

That FLIR can be used on exhaust, radiator, A/C, valves, even bearings and so many more items. Anything that generates heat.

another awesome video .. well done Mate

There's nothing else on that circuit.... Or in my head I'm saying "or is there? lol"... It's a modified van so wouldn't surprise me 🤣 Skills as always.

Good job

I have a Audi tt mk1 when I bought it did repairs and testing just to make sure car in Good shape. Battery drain 100ma so did testing as you do no fault found. Turn out this is right for a fully loaded car. I got specs from Bentley work shop manual. Great watching you vids thank you 😁

@PineHollowAutoDiagnostics

2 жыл бұрын

That's a big draw! It probably has a massive battery to compensate haha

Great video

When I worked for GANAS TRICOLOR , all the vehicles sold got a GPS tracker! and they would cause all kinds of issues like this .

Nice diag Ivan!

I was looking forward to see the internals of that device. A quick Google search shows " The SVR1000 Series is a portable LTE and GPS Wireless Modem which reports location information via the LTE cellular network with configurable intervals. It has an input which can be used to detect ignition and an output which can be used to control a starter interrupt device."

@xanderlander8989

2 жыл бұрын

That moment when you realize your customer has lo-jack

@nestorlugo.

2 жыл бұрын

This is for the dealer that sold it to the customer to track their vehicle

Very interesting good video!

I think this is the best way to diagnose parasitic draws. FLIR camera plus app should be kinda expensive for the DIYer. And not everyone wants to purchase wiring diagrams for their vehicle. Nonetheless, great work Ivan!

I spent months and months with a check engine light and a really nagging suspicion based on past visits to the same shop with two different cars with immaculate service records subsequently having problems. I was so stubborn that both of the cars have had them and at times not been registered over the last year and a half in spite of the means to do it with going back to the same place because no one else wanted to work on the cars... I knew nothing about cars until this year but after about 8 months I found the exact same thing you did underneath my sopping wet front left floor board, spliced into a power wire. After that I found three wire spliced in the steering column which when they were jostled with set a check engine light... Fixing both areas changed the intermittent nature of the lights, the Saturn no longer shows a check engine light due to the fact it's not suffering voltage drop from moisture on the wires or the wires in the steering column being temporarily pulled apart then coming back together, which also subsequently set off my windshield wipers at the same time... Looking forward to speaking with the Massachusetts state troopers sometime this week. On a separate note does anyone reading this comment happen to know why the vehicle information on my state inspection would show a different engine size than the 2.2 liter Ecotec - I thought that the information was automatically downloaded from the engine computers but my paperwork shows that I have a 2.0 l engine...

One of the few time it wasn't Chryslers fault LOL

Intense! I loved it! Nice work. I was saying to my screen... "No wonder the radio kept burning out and the new one doesn't work...." I was GUESSING that some yodel brain tapped that wire for the aftermarket radio power source, because it went by the radio, and happened to be "hot" This one couldn't have been better without getting in your way!

Yep, it's a tracker. SVR has a website. Very good tracking job!

I think the owner hid the box as a car-fix Jedi test…pass you did, Ivan!

Great video sharing

Those are pretty common around here. All the buy here pay her lots use them because they repo their vehicles just as much as they sell em!

That's crazy why would someone get the power from the door module there's other places to get power total laziness'. Great video Ivan.

another mystery solved you sure do get them

A master troubleshooter at work 👍🏽 I wonder if the tracking device was installed by the conversion company

@PineHollowAutoDiagnostics

2 жыл бұрын

Actually it was installed by the fleet maintenance guy himself haha

@Garth2011

2 жыл бұрын

@@PineHollowAutoDiagnostics I hope you let him know his wiring skills need honed.

Aftermarket crap! More than once I had guys tap into the vehicle's power system only to kill the battery over the weekend. I'd tell them not to reconnect. Some listened especially when their supervisor got involved. On a few vehicles, I wired in a relay that allowed operation with the ign switch in the on position.

Great find my friend. Hey after market crap makesus money. LOL

That was a good one.

Awesome

Thank god. A video to rescue me from KZread bordemn!

I looked up the specs, the device is supposed to draw only 2mA in deep sleep and 65mA when active. The device is clearly broken. Crappy aftermarket stuff...

Hay quá anh ơi

Well done Ivan...great diag as usual. Can't help but wonder....what's the need for a tracking device on a handicap van? Did the current owner perhaps buy the van used and the previous owner installed it? Unscrupulous seller installed it fearing a default on payments? Who knows? Information not likely to ever be revealed. But certainly a curious situation.

@notsureigaf

2 жыл бұрын

"Buy here pay here" lot was my first thought but I don't know how many of those deal in wheelchair vans. Mayne these vans are high theft targets so the GPS is included as a "courtesy" by the conversion installer? 🤔

That wiring reminds me of our gps units. Lol. And you found it. Lol it would draw enough if not used enough I bet. Leasing companies love these little bastard gps boxes. Our fleet of snow plows have similar boxes as do our pick ups.

I replaced my OEM radio in my 2015 Chevy Spark. The OEM radio audio amp to sound the turn indicators click sound, flasher sound, and door chime. My aftermarket Jensen came with a little box that looked much like this one you discovered. It draws its power from a wire direct from the radio. It also killed my OnStar (I never subscribed to) The parasitic load on my ride is about 0.09 mills. I assume this is for the clock and the factory security system. Cheers from Louisiana.

If the vehicle was purchased from a used car dealer, a lot of them have tracking devices installed in case a repo. is needed!

Oh that was a good one.

greetings lvan good video

It would have been nice if u would have used the thermal camera to just look around inside the vehicle. It might have picked that heat signature. Really cool vid. Don’t some used car dealerships put those in peoples car in case they need to do a repo? It was hidden pretty well. Thank u Ivan!!

will have to fix a vw touareg with 400mA draw and wonky auxiliary heater so far cant find the fuse that's responsible for the draw, i think that i will find something like you did :)

Well done ivan :-D i bet it worked ok when the car was being used every day. If it had a switched cigarette lighter socket, i would have tapped off that with an inline fuse to the tracker. Or maybe from the main switched ignition output. But connect it to the door module supply Ha ha :-D

Quick google search suggests it is GPS tracker, and wired incorrectly. It has an ignition feed wire, to put it to sleep mode when the car is shut off. Sleep mode is specified with 6mA at 12V.

@blueribb99

2 жыл бұрын

That makes sense. In that case it could be reinstalled correctly if the owner wants it.

Ivan, Great video, diagnosis,and fix - thank you! Paul (in MA)

I was suspecting the aftermarket radio being improperly installed…always start with user added accessories with shoddy wiring.

Did the customer know anything about it?

Great diagnostics Ivan. I wonder why they fitted a GPS tracker device into a vehicle that is hardly ever used in the first place. Must have been a present from the previous owner.

Customer says he didn't know it was there. FBI shows up all hot and bothered on a couple days, wanting their SV1000 back...

I noticed you use the test light primarily and even the power probe power plug(the clutch pedal switch video) was only for your test light. Curious if you actually even use the power probe at all? I considered one, but couldn't justify it, and new to electrical, but feels like even with your experience you are specific with your tools. Glad I found your channel, really enjoy the 4-5 videos I've seen so far. Thanks for making these videos.

@PineHollowAutoDiagnostics

2 жыл бұрын

I got a PowerProbe as a gift, but haven't used it once in over 5 years haha! Test lights make you think through each test, and you won't fry anything :) Also, I hate annoying buzzers and beepers lol

@HabemusQuattro

2 жыл бұрын

@@PineHollowAutoDiagnostics A test light won’t fry anything? Those Subaru window switches you fried - twice - would like to disagree. 😉

@PineHollowAutoDiagnostics

2 жыл бұрын

@@HabemusQuattro haha good call. That's the only example I can think of, due to poor design 😂

Congratulations. That's why I'll absolutely never tamper my car's factory wiring or add any AliExpress alarm, tracker or remote starter to it. Tons of diagnosis videos done by mechanics on KZread show cars having all kinds of problems after installing that stuff.

@joehomanick

2 жыл бұрын

I have remote start gps subs and audio systems in every car that I have owned never any problems . The problem is the installer!!! 💯.

@JimmyMakingitwork

2 жыл бұрын

They have to be installed properly, which is expensive and they also can not conflict with any OEM modules or their software. If those two things are correct, it will cause no problems at all. I much prefer to buy a vehicle with factory options I want for the least amount of “issues.”

I recently bought the same AstroAI amp clamp and tried measuring parasitic draw on my wife's RAV4 just for grins. It read 120-130 ma. I disregarded the measurement because I thought it probably was the accuracy of the clamp. Maybe I better start looking for a parasitic draw.

Ivan -- you'd be exploring some productive ground by getting to the bottom of why modules fail to go to sleep, or continue to draw current even when the car is key-off. In the case of this locator module, I wonder if its rechargeable battery no longer holds a charge, and now draws current full time, instead of only when the car is running, like it's supposed to.

Those trackers should be 65ma when awake and 6ma when sleeping. They have an internal nicad battery, so for it to be drawing 150ma, it it probably the charging circuit dumping power into a failed battery, dead nicads usually just sit there getting hot

Wonder if that was put in by used car lot, for repo purposes

I've never had an issue using fuse taps on my own vehicles, long as it's one of enough current for both devices and shuts off with the ignition. Also easily removable and no original wire has been breached. I know where they are and would go there first if there was ever a problem.

Had the same problem with my Envoy. Turned out to be the tracking device for the aftermarket alarm system, basically was a cell phone that used the car power to charge the battery of the phone so alarm agency could track your vech. if it was stolen, cell battery must have been bad and was drawing power to charge a battery that would not hold a regular charge.

Nothing raises an eyebrow in a parasitic draw issue like add ons, aftermarket radios, lighting and other trinkets. In my experience, People love to think a CAN wire makes for a good scotchlock ground path it seems…lol.

Great diagnosis as usual, Ivan, but removing that tracking device might be a breach of the sales agreement between your customer and the seller of his van, which would allow them to either declare a breach and repossess the van, or to accelerate all payments due into a lump sum payable immediately.

This exact same thing happened with a car my son bought, except the tracking device power was spliced into the data port's power. I happened to spot some suspicious looking wires under the driver's side dashboard, and followed them to the black mystery box.

A lot of commercial wheelchair van companies use GPS trackers in their vehicles. We installed them in ambulances, they were helpful if someone made a complaint about crews speeding or driving recklessly. The conversion company may have installed it in case the end buyer wanted to activate it.

Did the black SUVs show up yet, since you removed that?