Today I went to a place that was installing GPS for $70. They take your existing GPS and run the wire to an extra auxiliary plug in the back of your stereo. In short I do not have to plug into my cigarette lighter. Its a cleaner look and the GPS turns on and off with the car. I do not see any wires, but the GPS is still mounted to the windshield on driver side. My question is: will this drain my battery when the car is turned off. The person that installed it, assured me that it will not drain my battery when the car is off. I am taking his word for it, but wanted to get feedback to see if anyone else did this type of install or knows for sure that the aux plug in the back will not drain battery when something is connected to it.
If it is truly an AUX wire, the GPS will only be able to draw current when the car is in AUX, IG-ON or READY states.
I don't know of any AUX plug in the back of the stereo. What they likely did was tap into the 12v ignition wire, 12v constant (battery) and ground wires. This will make the GPS turn off and on with the car. In some cases we would actually install another "cigarette lighter" power port behind the dash and plug in the GPS or XM Radio device's plug so that we didn't have to cut any wires. If they simply tapped into the stereo wires then there should be no drain on your battery when the car is turned off. If you cannot turn the unit on while the car is off then you are good to go.
