I have scoured the Internet, forum after forum, looking for a solution to my GEM issue, and I can not find anything. I have an 01 Cobra I bought with a parasitic draw that was "due to the factory stereo" and in turn had a kill switch wired to the ignition to combat that. As I'm trying to restore this car, I decided to open that can of worms, and yup of course it's actually a GEM issue. Dropped the car off with my mechanic and he's even used an IR imager to view the GEM is on and drawing power after the car is off for extended periods of time. He says the only solution he can think of is replacing the GEM itself but then you're stuck with a used GEM that could do the same thing all over again. Now there are hundreds of threads all over the Internet talking about Ford's crappy GEM from this era, but through all of that no one has found a solution. Everyone says something along the lines of "yup it's a GEM issue, notorious" with no info on what to do about it. As it's 2024 I obviously can't replace the module with a new part. And I see plenty new edges on the roads so obviously this common issue has some sort of fix otherwise these cars would all be junked. I mean unfixable battery drain is a big issue, the average car owner wouldn't just deal with it. So I want to see if maybe there's something I'm missing, a keyword I'm not using when looking. And then when I find a solution I would like to create a definitive write up for anyone else in my boat on how to fix the issue the correct way. I'm sure a good few of you here have had GEM issues, so what did you do? Are you all really just running ignition kill switches? Cutting the GEM wire altogether? Running a junkyard GEM praying it works for as long as possible? Or is there a bigger picture fix. I'm %100 willing to admit ignorance here, maybe I'm a complete idiot and missing someone huge, in which case please let me know. My goal is just to have the car function like it should from factory. Power locks, no battery tender, no kill switch. Thank you
GEM solution!?
- Thread starter gateguard1
- Start date
I dont remember if I stumbled onto it here or not but there was a thread about a black wire going into the GEM that removing it from the connector stopped the draw. They could not find anything that stopped working or other issues with removing that wire and taping over the end. I took screen shots on my phone but I'll have to find them
my 03 mach has always had a draw and went dead if sitting for long and was going to explore this further, just havent gotten around to it.
my 03 mach has always had a draw and went dead if sitting for long and was going to explore this further, just havent gotten around to it.
That was me... still no draw and everything works like normal.
And to OP I've owned this car since new and it has had the issue since day 1. This fixed it.
Battery's Keep Dying
Today when I went out to test it the car hadn't been turned on since yesterday so it sat all night and I just went out, opened my door, popped the hood (made sure I shut the door) and then disconnected my negative terminal but it was still reading 150 milliamps. Sent from my SM-S536DL using the...
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Just for my and others future knowledge, how did you know it was the factory stereo doing the draw?---I thought I had a draw for about 1 1/2 years, even though the battery checked out with no problems it turned out to be the battery. Also if it was the factory stereo, could the problem have been in the stereo itself? maybe just replacing it might have or could have fixed the problem?
here is a detecting a power drain problem article I have found useful in the past.
here is a detecting a power drain problem article I have found useful in the past.
How to troubleshoot a power drain on the car?
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I had the battery drain issue and it was from one of the MACH460 amps. Found out by unplugging the amps. Only one was bad so for months I unplugged the one amp when parking the car. At the time I found all sorts of info on this problem and tried a "fix" but it didn't work. I ended up ripping out the MACH460 and replacing the entire sound system.
Do you know if this was causing any issues with your GEM. The sound system could totally be the issue, but the only thing I know for sure with my own car is that the GEM is not sleeping
The MACH460 radio draws power through Fuse-32 (15 A) as does the GEM. It is not clear, if the amp on/off circuit is always drawing power through the amp, where the radio gets that power from. The radio gets power from Fuse-6 (20 A), Fuse-27 (25 A) and Fuse-32 (15 A). I would try disconnecting the amps at the connectors C408 and C409 (right at the amps), then checking the GEM to see if it is still drawing power. It might not be the GEM at all that is the problem.
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