Phantom / Vampire Drain Solution Works! Using 12v Battery Tender

[iceman12578]

After following advice of posters on these forums as well as this youtube I was able to solve phantom/vampire battery drain easily.

I got a 12 volt battery tender, and an OBD3 port adaptor off amazon and leave it plugged in while the car is at home.

Instead of losing nearly 1.5kwh a night, the tender draws .16kwh.

Photos show the setup in my garage, the drain before and after from ElectriFi and a screenshot of my smart plug that measures throughput.

(The TL;DR reason is folks have found is is the 12 volt battery is too small to keep the rivian asleep all night so it drains and dies, then the rivian wakes up and runs all its electronics and computers out of sleep mode to recharge the 12 volt for 3 hours.)

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[NY_Rob]

Yup, 100% confirmed it works last summer. I went from losing 1-1.5kWh/day to losing only 2 miles range over a 96 hour (4 day) period.

 

[shrink]

There's a YouTube video on this?

I'm pretty sure I was one of the first to post this fix (after others had speculated it might work) back in 8/2024:

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/gen-1-vampire-drain-possibly-solved-or-hacked.31506/

 

[mudito]

Works like a charm

I copied @NY_Rob 's setup even though I use my R1T daily, I keep my 12V's with good health and my VD is almost non-existent. It's an easy hack to implement.

 

[mudito]

There's a YouTube video on this?

I'm pretty sure I was one of the first to post this fix (after others had speculated it might work) back in 8/2024:

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/gen-1-vampire-drain-possibly-solved-or-hacked.31506/

You probably were the first, at least to my own personal knowledge and investigation on the matter.

 

[NY_Rob]

There's a YouTube video on this?

I'm pretty sure I was one of the first to post this fix (after others had speculated it might work) back in 8/2024:

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/gen-1-vampire-drain-possibly-solved-or-hacked.31506/

I got my inspiration from your experiments, it was a home run as far as killing VD!!

 

[tjrivian]

While this looks like it works very well to reduce vampire drain, I worry about unintended consequences. Rivian monitors how often the 12V needs to be recharged and uses that to flag 12V batteries that need proactive replacement. If you alter that curve by using a 12V battery tender then there's no way for Rivian to monitor it properly, and you then expose yourself to the possibility of a 12V battery failure happening without any warning. If that happens on a roadtrip it could be really painful.

 

[mudito]

While this looks like it works very well to reduce vampire drain, I worry about unintended consequences. Rivian monitors how often the 12V needs to be recharged and uses that to flag 12V batteries that need proactive replacement. If you alter that curve by using a 12V battery tender then there's no way for Rivian to monitor it properly, and you then expose yourself to the possibility of a 12V battery failure happening without any warning. If that happens on a roadtrip it could be really painful.

If you're doing this ONLY when you store your R1 for a long time, OR every now and then (like I do) to restore the 12V health, I don't see why this would affect Rivian's data.

FYI, my 12V died already, hence why I made this thread and I'm monitoring my 12V Health heavily.

 

[kong]

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/proactive-replacement-of-12v-battery.29657/post-702274

I carry this around in my R1S and have been meaning to try it…

 

[tjrivian]

If you're doing this ONLY when you store your R1 for a long time, OR every now and then (like I do) to restore the 12V health, I don't see why this would affect Rivian's data.

FYI, my 12V died already, hence why I made this thread and I'm monitoring my 12V Health heavily.

Sure, with those caveats it sounds like a reasonable thing to do. But people need to be aware that attempting to do this all the time on a daily basis to try to always avoid vampire drain could have some very serious unforeseen consequences.

 

[Thedude]

It’s a good bandaid but it really only is a fix in the place it matters least - your house or somewhere else you have easily available power. It doesn’t solve the real problem with loss of charge when parked at an airport, out in the woods, etc.

 

[Nixapatfan]

Sure, with those caveats it sounds like a reasonable thing to do. But people need to be aware that attempting to do this all the time on a daily basis to try to always avoid vampire drain could have some very serious unforeseen consequences.

Maybe but if your 12v is already out of warranty and I'm going to pay for a replacement then at that point I won't really care if it messes with Rivian data collection or their battery health flag.

 

[kong]

It’s a good bandaid but it really only is a fix in the place it matters least - your house or somewhere else you have easily available power. It doesn’t solve the real problem with loss of charge when parked at an airport, out in the woods, etc.

A battery powered OBD trickle charger solution like the one I mentioned above would help in this scenario…

 

[good2go]

Sorry for the dumb question, but I’m not understanding when you use this. Is it for people that don’t plug the Rivian in nightly?

if it’s plugged in nightly the main battery is always topped off. And it can wake up and charge the 12v.

 

[Kurt44]

Great info!
Thank you

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