While Honda Odyssey offers ample space that accommodates more passengers and luggage, this family minivan has a minor drawback; its sliding door can drain the battery a lot if faulty.
Is your Honda Odyssey sliding door draining the battery? Or do you wish to get an answer to the frequently asked question; why does the Honda Odyssey sliding door drain the battery?
There are a few possible causes of this parasitic battery drain problem. These include a bad relay for opening and closing the sliding doors, a faulty multiplex integrated control unit(MICU)module, and problems with one or both doors.
Other causes include but are not limited to leaving the doors powered on for longer durations e.g overnight, and having the wrong battery.
Contents
Causes of Honda Odyssey Sliding Door Draining Battery Explained
1. A Bad Relay for Opening and Closing The Dual Sliding Doors
The work of your car’s relay device is to connect or interrupt the circuit when it comes to the opening or closing of its sliding doors. A faulty relay will keep the circuit connected and hence the doors powered on even when it’s unnecessary.
This will drain your battery. Solution: Replace your relay to ensure that the doors are powered on only when it’s necessary. Typically, the relay costs around 30 bucks minus labor.
If that doesn’t solve your problem, you know that the battery drain is due to a different issue.
2. A Faulty MICU Module
Your Honda Odyssey comes with a multiplex integrated control unit that is located below the driver’s kick panel. The unit controls all the electrical systems and subsystems in the minivan, including your sliding doors.
It works based upon the information of the related switches and relays. Now, a faulty MICU may cause your sliding doors to remain powered on unnecessarily, draining your battery in the end.
Solution: Replace the MICU module. This may cost you about $140 minus labor. If the problem doesn’t go away, it means it’s a different issue.
3. Using the Wrong Battery
Sometimes you may be dealing with continuous battery drains because you have the wrong battery in your car. With its power-consuming sliding doors, the Odyssey requires a strong battery of 600 ACC or higher as opposed to 550 ACC or anything similar that other cars can run on with any problem.
Solution: Try getting the right battery for your minivan. A 600ACC battery goes for between $45 and $250, depending on size, power, and quality.
Labor, on the other hand, costs between $28 and $36. If that doesn’t fix the problem, then it could be another issue.
4. Leaving The Doors Powered On for Longer Duration
Your Honda Odyssey comes with dual-power sliding doors that are electrically powered and can also be operated manually using the door handles.
Operating the doors manually rather than electrically can help curb the parasitic battery drain problem. Solution: Power off your sliding doors and start operating the doors manually. This should at least fix the problem if all the other steps above fail to.
How Do You Turn Off the Dual Power Sliding Doors on a Honda Odyssey?
Locate the main door switch that is located to the left of the steering wheel and labeled “Main.” Next, move the switch to “Off” and you shall have turned off the power to the dual sliding doors so that you can start operating the doors manually.
How Do You Manually Close an Odyssey Sliding Door?
When the main switch is “OFF”, you can easily close your dual sliding doors manually. All you’ve got to do is to slide each door with your hand to close.
How Do You Reset a Honda Odyssey Sliding Door?
By turning off the main switch and sliding the door manually to close, then powering the switch back on. This will automatically reset the door.
Final Thoughts
Honda Odyssey is a unique car because it comes with dual power sliding doors. Unfortunately, problems affecting one or both of these doors can lead to parasitic battery drain whereby power continues to drain from your battery even when the car is packed with the engine switched off.
Luckily, there are a few known causes of this problem that can be resolved to fix it. These include a bad relay for opening and closing the sliding doors, a faulty multiplex integrated control unit(MICU)module, and problems with one or both doors.
Leaving the doors powered on for longer durations e.g overnight and using the wrong battery can also be blamed for this. If the problem persists despite fixing any of these problems that may be affecting your door(s), be sure to see your mechanic for assistance.
