Battery Dies After Installing the Curt Powered Wiring Harness on a 2008 Ford Escape

Updated 04/04/2013 | Published 03/31/2013

Products Featured in This Question

Curt T-Connector Vehicle Wiring Harness with 4-Pole Flat Trailer Connector

(180)

$72.72

Hook Probe Circuit Tester

(60)

$12.27

Question:

Sir, I have a 2008 Ford Escape that I installed my new Curt trailer hitch and wiring harness assembly. Since I have installed the product, my battery has drained completely and dead when I tried to start it. I have removed the fuse to see if the drain was from the wiring harness. The battery did not lose any power and did not drain with the fuse removed from the wiring harness. What could be causing the wiring harness to drain my battery?

asked by: Bill W

Expert Reply:

There are a few things that could cause your battery to drain after installing a trailer wiring harness like the Curt T-Connector, # C56329. The first thing that we can test for is a bad converter box. With the fuse in place, test the 4-flat connector on the wiring harness without any vehicle lights on using a circuit tester with an incandescent bulb like part # PTW2993. Be sure to test each pin. If there is constant power on any of the pins with the vehicle lights off, then the converter box could be bad and would need to be replaced.

I have attached a video of my coworker demonstrating how to test a 4-way trailer connector with a circuit tester for you to check out.

If the 4-flat connector is functioning properly, then there are a few other factors to consider. Typically, with vehicles that are a few years old and still have the original battery, our installers have found that the battery will die or be close to dead once the installation is complete. This is because the rear hatch, side doors or hood were left open for many hours causing the interior lights to be on the entire time.

If the 4-flat connector is functioning correctly and the vehicle battery is now charged install the fuse into the fuse holder to see if the battery dies again. If there is no power coming out of the converter box, it would be very difficult for the converter box to drain a vehicle battery. The converter box on this harness only draws a few milliamps that would not affect the battery.

If you are unable to resolve the problem, let me know what you come up with and we can do further troubleshooting.

expert reply by: John H