Cigarette Lighter - constant power?

juicy

Member
I've just noticed with my 05 Z4 that my cigarette lighter power socket remains live when the car ignition is off but is it meant to automatically switch off after a set period of time after the ignition is off.

The reason I ask is, with appliances like my Ipod controller, Tom Tom etc, it I can see it becoming a real pain to constanly remember to pull them out of the cigarette lighter socket each time I park up for the night. The main concern, obviously being draining the battery if the car is parked up for any length of time - this time of year and can be a few days to a week without using the the car. With my previous cars I'm used to the socket being linked with the ignition, so it was never an issue before.
 
Mine is always live. I have plugged my Garmin in to look up something without turning on the ignition and it is always live so I don’t know about it ever going off, if it does mine is miss functioning. Other cars I have shut off and I wish the Zed did, but as far as I know it does not. :(
 
It was recently posted that it does switch off after a period of time, as somebody wanted to connect a battery tender, as was told not to use the lighter socket to connect to the car.
 
That post was incorrect though (at least for my car). I am using the battery maintainer plugged in through the lighter socket with no problem.
 
I wonder if it has anything to do with the year of the Zed? I just went out to the garage and plugged the Garmin in the cigarette socket and it was live and the car has not been started for over 2 weeks. My Zed is a 2004 2.5i. If it shuts off after a time, that sure is a long time!!!!!
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Mine used to shut off after a period of time. When I got in the car, I'd have to turn the ignition to position 2 to get power to the satnav. All the US people seem to see the power stay on, so maybe it's a regional difference?
 
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