Electrical drainage ftmfl...

[juzer]

Originally Posted by Fel

Okay, so I'm having this awesome problem with my battery....

If I leave the car off for more than a day, the battery dies. It's not the battery, I've already replaced it with no results. I've also checked a few times that I'm not leaving any lights on or anything.

Kind of sucks going somewhere and fearing that your car might not start by the time you get back to it.... I've taken to disconnecting the positive lead on the battery every time I'm out and parked jsut so it doesn't drain.

So my question is..... where do I start?? What could possibly be causing it? (Out of the 10 billion posibilities....) Could someone give me a checklist of sorts of what I should look at as a possible drain?... maybe starting from cheapest to most expensive...

Thanks...

Check the trunk light switch, i had same problem for a month untill i find out trunk light is on constantly.

[richie_s999]

take the bulb outa the trunk to see if it still drains, with no light the circut is broken and would not drain it

[everlast]

Don't bother with battery switches or spending hours on the internet hoping someone will miraculously know what's wrong. There is exactly ONE way to determine why your battery is dying:

Originally Posted by Axxe

Get a good quality multimeter, unhook main batter positive lead (use the one on the firewall, closer to fuse box). Set multimeter on ammeter mode, run in series between positive terminal block on firewall and main lead to fuse box. If you have a current flowing you have a drain somewhere, start pulling fuses out of the fuse box until the reading changes, and then investigate that circuit. I had a similar problem, turned out to be the interior constant line (for radio), there was a small cut and corrosion in the wire causing a tiny short to the chassis that didn't draw enough current to blow the fuse but enough to drain the battery overnight.

Princess Auto and Canadian Tire have digital meters on sale on any given week for under $10. That's adequate for your needs.

[Ej_Red]

You can also disconnect the battery negative cable in the trunk and run ammeter in series in between battery ground and ground cable in the trunk. Take the trunk light bulb out though. Your doors suppose to be closed and your key suppose to be out of ignition. You should wait at least 5 minutes and the drain should not be more then 1 amp. It should be around 0.5 or so. Now if you find a drain, start pulling fuses one by one to see which circuit the drain is on.

[Fel]

Originally Posted by everlast

Don't bother with battery switches or spending hours on the internet hoping someone will miraculously know what's wrong. There is exactly ONE way to determine why your battery is dying:



Princess Auto and Canadian Tire have digital meters on sale on any given week for under $10. That's adequate for your needs.

Yep, that's the plan... Axxe talks smart words.

Soon as I pick up a multimeter, I'll test it out and report back. Until then, I'll just continue with my disconnect/reconnect routine.