Thread: Running the car stereo with engine off? MY15 TDV6

It's to protect the battery...
There's a lot of draw from a modern car stereo...

You'll have to just keep turning it back on...

Just out of interest I should like to point out that the Defender stereo
as fitted to Bear is automatically set to run for 1 hr at the push of the
button. :P Maybe you should upgrade to a Defender stereo?

(PS:- remember that the first 2 minutes with a defender radio is very average radio reception as the valves in the radio warm up )

Hi simplydisco and welcome to the forum.

Honestly, you are far better off not running the entertainment system with the motor off.

As Tombie posted, your disco's sound system draws heaps of power and it will very quickly discharge your battery to a low state.

If the Battery gets too low, you will find the volume will be reduced as a means of trying to conserve battery capacity.

I ran the radio in my wife's RX350 Lexus while I prepared to see a client ... for about 5 minutes. The battery went flat ... I couldn't start her car. I ended up getting a yellow top for her car ... Toyota (errhh Lexus) then informed me that you must not run the accessory switch for more than a couple of minutes, because the drain from the computers is huge.

At least with the D4, you can run just the sound system, without all the computers draining. But only for 10 minutes ... it may not be very good for the battery too...

And the D4 will also switch off if the battery is getting low, and it provides a battery warning in its display. I have a Traxide system, but although the Traxide setup protects the 2nd (auxiliary) battery so that it can restart the motor, the D4 is not aware of the 2nd battery which is controlled by the Traxide setup.

MY advice is to buy a battery powered bluetooth device that runs sound from your phone. Bose make a beauty, but they cost $400 odd dollars. They last for 10 hours though ... there's a smaller Bose unit that's around $200 I think ... they sound great and with something close behind them, their base is fantastic IMO.

Hello simplydisco,

Unsure if things are different in the newer models but this is what I have found.
When we have been to a DriveIn Movie I let the Disco go to sleep first. I then just press the ON/OFF Button for the Stereo only and it stays ON for about 60 minutes. Nothing else appears to powerup. After the 60 minutes the Stereo turns OFF and we just quickly press the ON/OFF Button again.

We have a MY11 SDV6 SE with the Standard Stereo incase that makes a difference.

Originally Posted by digger

Just out of interest I should like to point out that the Defender stereo
as fitted to Bear is automatically set to run for 1 hr at the push of the
button. :P Maybe you should upgrade to a Defender stereo?

(PS:- remember that the first 2 minutes with a defender radio is very average radio reception as the valves in the radio warm up )

And that's AFTER you have run the dipole aerial out between a couple of nearby trees and plugged it in.

Originally Posted by NTB

Hello simplydisco,

Unsure if things are different in the newer models but this is what I have found.
When we have been to a DriveIn Movie I let the Disco go to sleep first. I then just press the ON/OFF Button for the Stereo only and it stays ON for about 60 minutes. Nothing else appears to powerup. After the 60 minutes the Stereo turns OFF and we just quickly press the ON/OFF Button again.

We have a MY11 SDV6 SE with the Standard Stereo incase that makes a difference.

Do you have the std stereo with the small screen?
I am pretty sure that the MY15 only comes with the mid-level stereo now with the larger touch screen. My MY14 with mid-level stereo certainly operates as described above, with only about 10 minutes of operation before it will try to turn itself off, irrespective of where the vehicle is "asleep" or not.

To simplydisco, if you are using the stereo when parked to play MP3s or similar from your phone, maybe an option is go and get a bluetooth speaker for $30-50 and use it directly from the phone when parked up.

Cheers,
Chris