So in CT it's been pretty cold most nights so far this winter, every morning I'm greeted with either a dead, or almost dead without enough power to turn over battery. My battery and charging system all checked out ok, however theres is supposed to be something around a 50 mili-amp draw on the battery to keep the clock, radio, and pcm memory but mine has something in the ballpark of 400-600 mili-amp draw, which leads me to beleive there is a short, or other wiring problem somewhere in the car. I did some seaching and found one of my relays may have been stuck, and I replaced one of my fuses. I had the meter on the battery and one at a time i pulled all my fuses to see if there was any change, there wasn't. Now there is about a 300 mili-amp draw on the battery with the new relay and fuse, so there is still something wrong. Not having the money to have a dealer browse for the problem I'm just wondering if an Optima battery may be a quick solution to the problem. The colder out it is, the deader my battery gets. I got an autozone gift card for christmas so the battery will basically be free. When work becomes more steady i'll jump on getting it professionally diagnosed and fixed, but for now I'm wondering if a red top, or yellow top optima battery could mask my problems? Thanks....
A new battery isn't going to solve your problem. You car is drawing too much amperage. It's going to drain down whatever you put in there. You need to find what is drawing the power and fix it.
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It's probably something with your radio. how did you hook up the ignition wire on the radio (does the radio turn off when you turn off the car, or do you have to turn it off yourslef)? Also, what about your XM radio? Does it turn off when the car is off? How do you know? are your amp's REM wire connected to the proper connection on the radio (they turn off with ignition too? just some things to check. It's not a short or you would have a fire. something is just not turning off all the way.
I used a harness when I installed my radio so it was all plug and play, since i replaced the radio I no longer have the XM and OnStar features. I Haven't made any modifications to the car in over a year and this just started being a problem as it's been getting colder. I dont know if the cold is just making it harder for the battery to do it's job or what, but I never had this problem before. It's a real pain..... I'm not really sure where to go from here either. If i disconnect my battery every night then reconnect it in the morning it's fine and starts right up, but then I lose all my settings for everything, my clock, and my alarm. Thank you for your input!
It is possible that your battery could be shorted internally causing a draw. I had a similar issue on one of my vehicles with an unusually large draw. It did turn out to be the battery. We tested for a draw afterwards and there was nothing to speak of.
Optima batterys are not all they are hyped up to be. If and when you do have to charge it you must charge it at a very slow rate otherwise you will heat up the gel inside which forms a buble reducing the contact between the gel and plate therefore reducing the performance of the battery. Jumping a car that has a dead optima battery is a sure fire way to decrease its performance and lifespan. I would glady take any top of the line conventional battery over the Optima since you don't have to worrry about the charge rate when it goes dead.
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I <3 my Optima. You have to charge it slow but Ive never had mine be close to dead.
But are your amps turning of when your radio does? If theyre sitting on all night itll for sure kill your battery.
Bringing this back from the dead. I'm having the same problem with my 01 cav 2200. In an 8 hour shift, my battery completely died. Stone dead. It was cold and the battery is refurbished and 4-5 years old. So I figured I just needed a new one. Got a jump, went home, and replaced it the next day. Started up and worked fine all day starting and stopping. The next day (about 16 hours later) I got in my car to go to work and it was STONE dead again. I'm talking not even a dome light or anything. So today I got a jump and drove it around for awhile to charge it back up. Then I came back, unhooked the positive terminal and put a test light between it and the battery with the key off. The light was on, so I know there is a draw. I unhooked ALL aftermarket equipment, pulled the fuse and the bulb for the dome light, and pulled every fuse and relay one at a time (interior and under the hood). Nothing turned the light off (minus the main 40 amp fuse under the hood). I also tried completely unhooking the alternator, plug and charge wire.
According to this, there is always some type of draw, regardless of how small, on the battery. So that means even if I DID locate the issue, the test light would still shine right?
Any help, insight, or tips would be great. As of now I'm just pulling the main fuse every time I park the car and putting it back in before start-up. It blows... Thanks in advance guys.
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2 year old post? you have a draw on your battery while the key is off, just like the OP
jason norwood wrote:2 year old post? you have a draw on your battery while the key is off, just like the OP
Typically people here complain when you don't search at all before posting so I dug this up to prove I did.
Yes, I have a draw. My question is; I'm using a test light to try and find where it is. Earlier in this post it mentioned that there is always a small draw on the battery. So in theory, even if nothing is wrong, a test light would light up in between the battery and the battery cable (with the key off). Is that true or false?
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Alternator with a shorting but still working voltage regulator can drain the battery
MasterFlight wrote:Alternator with a shorting but still working voltage regulator can drain the battery
I removed the plug and the charging wire to the alternator. Test light was still on. That should mean its something else right?
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Do not use a test light... use a volt meter on amperage... test light is far to inaccurate...
< or = 250mA is considered acceptable.
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A lot of meters could get blown out from doing it this way. I found my short by measuring resistance between the ground and hot leads to the battery with the battery completely disconnected. Measured it with all the fuses still in. Pulled all of the ones in the main under hood fuse box, then put them back in one by one. starting with the main, the main set it so I knew it was nothing fused on anything else and it was in the cabin. Pulled all those out and put them back in 1 by one and found out which ones have a non-infinite resistance. if the resistance is infinite (aka the meter reads --) then there is not short and its good. If it reads any sort of resistance there is a short.
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Leafy wrote:A lot of meters could get blown out from doing it this way. I found my short by measuring resistance between the ground and hot leads to the battery with the battery completely disconnected. Measured it with all the fuses still in. Pulled all of the ones in the main under hood fuse box, then put them back in one by one. starting with the main, the main set it so I knew it was nothing fused on anything else and it was in the cabin. Pulled all those out and put them back in 1 by one and found out which ones have a non-infinite resistance. if the resistance is infinite (aka the meter reads --) then there is not short and its good. If it reads any sort of resistance there is a short.
A parasitic drain often has nothing to do with a short. If you are testing this correctly the completely safe way is to use an inductive amp clamp... however most multimeters have a 20A fused circuit on the amperage shunt. With the key off (which is the only way you should be testing for parasitic drain) you should never see more than 20A... or anywhere close for that matter. This is the best and most accurate way to check for a parasitic drain.
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Thanks for all the responses guys. All good info. Guess ill be investing in a good multi-meter.
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Resistance will show you a lot. Those always on circuits like the radio have a resistance, if there is a finite resistance electricity can flow, your resistance should be below ~45 ohms When I found my draw I was measuring 8 ohms, which means If I put my cheap ass, anchient multimeter on it with a 1 amp max for dc amperage I would have blown it out with 12volts from the battery (because it was a 1.5 amp draw).
1994 Saturn SL2 Home Coming Edition: backup car
2002 Chevy Cavalier LS Sport Coupe: In a Junk Yard
1995 Mazda Miata R-package Class=STR
Sponsored by:
Kronos Performance
WPI Class of '12 Mechanical Engineering
WPI SAE Risk and Sustainability Management Officer
Thanks for all the help guys. I had another problem with my heater blower that was fixed by replacing the relay under the hood. I KNOW this relay stuck on for awhile before it stuck off. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there is a hot wire somewhere in that system that is hot all the time right? If that's the case, that's what was causing the massive draw. It stopped killing the battery at the same time the blower stopped working all together (stuck off).
Again, thanks everyone! you guys rock.
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