Crippleinthewoods

Hello everyone, I have been dealing with a possible battery draw and I’m at wits end! Hoping someone can help me out… At some point a while back I had a couple days off and I didn’t leave my house. After my 2 or 3 days of not driving the car, the car wouldn’t start and I had to charge the battery. I started troubleshooting, put a clamp meter on the battery ground and started pulling fuses… more on that in a minute. I noticed that when I unlock my car it pulls close 20 amps on my meter 😵‍💫. I know a lot of systems come online but that seems excessive, right? It slowly drops and if I double lock the car it’s back down to around 1 amp till the car goes to sleep where it reads around .05. Back to the fuse pulling… I couldn’t get the amps below 1 while the car was “still awake.” (Doors closed and no interior lights on) It gets a bit weird here, I pulled all the fuses and relays one at a time and in doing so found that if I take out the large clear top fuse for heated seats, my door lock actuators stop working. If I pull my door lock actuator fuse, my power mirrors don’t work and Vice versa when I pull the mirror fuse. Not sure if that is related to my massive amp draw or just another problem. The car has never been flooded as far as I know but it has lived it’s whole life here in New Orleans so there is a possibility of that. Even so, I don’t remember having to drive it daily to keep the battery charged. Anyway… thanks for taking the time to read this, any advice is appreciated!

Hey everyone. Had something a little strange happen… I have had a massive failure of window regulators and door lock actuators all within a few weeks of each other. My mkz is a 2007 but only has about 60,000 miles on it. It’s strange to me all my regulators except One and all my lock actuators except one (different Doors for the lock and regulators still working). This is not my question but if anyone has any insight as to what may have caused it, I’m all ears. My main purpose for this post is about the difference in anti theft vs non anti theft lock actuators as well as alternative brands (like off Amazon or something) my car does have anti theft and I live in New Orleans so it’s probably a pretty good thing to have. It is an extra 60 dollars though and I need 3 at once…. What is the actual difference in them? Also, has anyone had success with using a cheaper brand? I know they are one of the most used components on a car, therefore probably not a good item to cheap out on - but inflation has got me feeling poor… I appreciate any advice or answers, thanks everyone.

Yes. You read that correctly. I went up north to drive a friends car down because they can’t drive stick. After the 13 hour drive we picked my MKZ up at the airport. I stayed driving the stick of course and less than a mile from the airport I felt a violent impact from behind while waiting at a a light. I couldn’t believe it… rear ended by my own car…. That night I drove it home after tearing the bumper off and everything seemed ok. The next day I noticed some fluid on my transmission but was too depressed to press further. Today I took the battery and tray assembly out and noticed more fluid in top of the trans. I popped the module off and found the leak. It’s under the pins for the trans module. I didn’t go any further as I’m unsure how to take that part off and don’t want to screw anything up. Does anyone know how to remove it or what my next step should be? (Other than taking it to a shop of course, that’s probably what will happen next anyway) thanks everyone… ride on

It ended up needing a regulator. What a pain of a job… got it taken care of though. Other than a tiny scratch on my tint, everything is perfect!

Hello. Window would not roll back up so I removed the paneling and found the wire on the regular was snapped. Motor still works, anyone know if is possible to just replace the wire or do I have to replace the whole regulator? Thanks!

Hello, I have been slowly crossing things off my list, last week I changed out the 2 trans mounts (that top mount drivers side was a PITA!) and now I have no vibration and no clunking while shifting. I was pleasantly surprised, it does not feel like a 14 year old car. Next up is my front struts, I’ve been looking at all the car parts websites and mostly see brands I’m not very familiar with. I did find some motorcraft and figured I’d stick tk OEM but wanted to ask if anyone had went with something else for an “upgrade” (smoother ride/better handling and all that) the only “upgraded” struts I have really seen were bilstein but they did not seem to have to have the whole strut assembly and I don’t want to play around with compressing the springs. So any info pertaining to the struts or tips/tricks to do the job are greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone.

Hi, I don’t know why I’m having such a hard time with this but I can’t seem to get an accurate reading off my dip stick after changing my oil. I changed my oil last week and did everything according to spec. After warming the engine up a couple mins I shut the car off and waited a few minutes to let the oil back into the pan. When i checked the oil, the first hole is filled and there is a section above that where it isn’t a clean line of oil, like it’s on half of the stick and then on the top bend of the dip stick. I wiped it and tried again, this time both holes had oil and above where the bend is had the same half covered thing going on. I started thinking I didn’t get so the oil out as I had the car on ramps but you’d think being angled like that would help the oil drain. Anyways, i used s small tube and pump and took a little out. Only the first hole has oil now but I’m still getting oil above and higher on the dip stick. Has anyone had this problem before? I feel real stupid and feel like I need to drain the oil into a clean container so I can measure it but would rather avoid the mess if possible... next time I’m out I will try to snap a picture so you can see what I mean. Any insight is appreciated, thanks y’all.

Hey, thanks for the response. I know where the pinch weld spot is, I suppose my dilemma is where to put the Jack stand once I use the scissor jack to jack the car up. I had an idea and got a second pinch jack from pull apart, took it apart and tried welding the “pinch adapter” to a jack stand... it didn’t really work out so I abandoned that plan.

Hello everyone, forgive me as I’m sure I’m doing something wrong here - this is my first post! I’ve had my mkz for a little under a year now. I bought it from an older lady for next to nothing and while it’s a bit old, it only had 56,000 on it... but damn were they a hard 56,000. The car has this ungodly creak, it use to happen when I’d drive over a bump or when turning the wheel in a parking lot... now it doesn't stop. Long story short, it’s the front struts - I’m 90 percent sure on this. So i ordered the upgraded struts from rockauto and plan on putting them in myself with a buddy of mine that has done a strut job before (on a van though) I’m an engineer by trade and work a lot with my hands, so I’m not worried about changing the struts out... what I do need guidance on is how to Jack the car up properly for the job and not have any tension on the suspension. If I have one gripe (other than the water pump) with this car it’s the stupid pinch weld... anyways, any info is appreciated. Thanks y’all and sorry again if I did something wrong!