sh0kk86

Brand new battery.
Alternator and battery both test good.

My battery will be drained every morning i go to drive, been happening this whole week. i charge the damn thing up then, and drive around in the evening, park it, and it drains it again.

I redid my grounds for my tach and stereo, and it still does it.
what could be draining the battery guys? im tired of walking back and forth to work, or getting rides. and i need this fixed asap, theres a run up north on saturday im planning on making, even if i have to keep push starting my truck to get home from the trails.

seanz0rz

hit up autozone and have them test the battery. i had a similar situation and it was a bad battery. after being jumped and running the truck for a while i could turn it off and restart it immediately, but if i let it sit i couldnt.

Scooby098

you might wanna check all ur grounds even the ones to ur engine and theres ways of takeing a tester light on the negitive side to find the drain too.

rdlsz24

My truck does the same thing but it dies after sitting for 2-3 days. I got so tired of having to jump it and couldn't find the drain so I installed a battery cut off switch. Haven't had a dead battery since as long as I remember to flip it off. Looks like this:



You can get them at Wal-Mart in the automotive section. It would be worth it, even if it's temporary while you continue the search for the drain. It beats having to jump it every morning and toasting your battery. Here is where I installed mine because it's permanent, but you could easily leave it under the hood if it's temporary. You would just want to put it in some type of box to protect the connections.



You could easily install one before your trip tomorrow if you have about a half-hour or hour.

Rob

waskillywabbit

iTrader: (-1)

Do you have a stereo with amps etc? My bet is you have a bad ground if you have one of those booming systems and it has vibrated loose.

colsoncj

if you're battery and alt check good, an easy way to determine where your short is:

everynight remove 1 fuse from the fuse panel. Let it sit the normal amount of time to kill it. if, when you come back, it still exhibits the problem, return that fuse, and repeat with another circuit. Should allow you to pinpoint the circuit that is giving you the problems to ease the troubleshooting.

Flash319

There is an easier way. Take a mulimeter, put it on Amps (may have to change posts on the meter for current reading), Take off the positive terminal on the battery and connect one of the leads to it, connect the other lead of the meter to the battery, see what the draw is (should be less then 150ma or 0.150 amps I would think, depends on what is running all the time in the truck, clock,stereo memory ect). Then start pulling fuses until the load (current draw) goes down. If the draw is very low to start with you probebly have a battery problem.

To check the battery, disconnect the battery, put the multimeter on Voltage (change the leads to the original posts on the meter) and connect one lead to the positive on the battery and the other lead to the negative post on the battery. Read the voltage (should be over 12V). Leave it like this for a few hours then see what the voltage is. If the voltage keeps dropping your battery is NG.

sh0kk86

well i was at my friends shop yesterday and they hooked up some cool 3000$ snap on machine that tested my allternator and my battery, and they were both good. we tok off the positive cable and hooked up the meter, but we had it on volts. it was around 11.5 and when i hit the brake it jumped to 12.8, over about an hour mins it dropped to 12.5.

reason we hit the brakes cuz my brakes always stick and the lights will stay on or come on randomly in the middle of the night, so we replaced that yesterday. ill check the amps flash, thanks.


and wich fuses do i pull, the ones in the engine bay or in the kick panel?

sh0kk86

sony xplod head unit
2x infinity reference 4" dash speakers
2x pioneer 6.5" speakers in the doors.

no amps/subs or anything. and once i get it started and drive for a bit i can turn it off and it will start ok but a couple hours later its dead.

could the battery still be the culprit even though it tests good.

looks like ill be making a run to autozone or walmart after work tonight so i can get that kill switch for the time being. wish i didnt have to leave for school now, then work 1230 to 9

mr_schuster

I have never heard of some of these methods of checking for a draw, but in my experiences working for Toyota we would remove the negative cable from the battery, place the volt meter wires between the negative terminal of the battery and the ground cable. Place the meter on amps and make sure everything is turned off, doors shut and key out of the ignition. Toyota states the draw should be no more than 50 Milliamps on most vehicles. If you find the vehicle has a high draw rate from the battery, leave the volt meter connected and have a friend remove fuses from the fuse block one at time until you isolate the circuit. If you have anything hardwired to the battery, not fused, check those items first. If you would like I can post the Toyota directions for checking for a parasitic load. Let me know.

sh0kk86

anything would be helpful, please post up. will do that later tonight, gotta get to work now.

could the stereo memory be draining it that fast?

Yoda

This is the way to test it (back in my auto-electric days)

Question: Does your stereo operate with the key off? We used to find stereo's wired with the accy feed and the battery feed (memory) wired together. This caused circuitry to remain on that drained the battery. If the head unit has a switched feed, it needs to be OFF when you park.

sh0kk86

ya its wired correctly. only when the key is on the acc position or on.


i just cleaned off the negative cable to the block connection, threw in a an optima and it fired up. let it run for about 5 mins, turned it off, and it is back to its normal click click, of the starter solenoid.

now what?

EDIT
===


i tightened the nut to the starter and it works just fine now.

im thinking the drain may of been coming from the door buzzer i disconeected. i just unplugged the two connectors so i wouldnt hear that annoying sound every time the door is open, with the key on, and this is when the battery drain all started happening i think.

guess ill find out tomorrow

thanks for the help guys, hope this is over.

4x4phil

My battery just starting dying the other day, same way but my stereo dosent work now, I checked the fuse.

Green93

I had a parasitic draw on my car and it drove me crazy.

First, make sure everything in your vehicle is off. Remove one battery cable and put a small test light between the cable and battery post. As long as everything in the car is off the light should stay off. If everything is off and the light turns on then something is drawing power. AKA a parasitic draw. While watching the light start pulling one fuse at a lime from the fuse box. If you pull a fuse and the light is still on, replace that fuse and move on to the next one. Eventually you will pull a fuse and the light will go out. Whatever is running through that fuse is your problem. Just check the components and wiring related to that one fuse. Narrows your search way, way down.

Hope you find it....

Jason

mr_schuster

Here is how you check it... Yota style.

http://s254.photobucket.com/albums/h...2000/Parasite/

Hope this works, I can't ever get pics put up on here.

grant526

I don't recall hearing anyone mention cleaning your terminals.

Mine were really corroded and nasty till yesterday afternoon. My truck has had a slight draw for a while too. If I let it sit for the weekend or more it would sound really weak, but it still rolled enough to fire. Yesterday I tried to start it for the 1st time since Thursday and it rolled over twice! lol So I jumped it, got it to work and proceeded to clean it all up and add some more fluid to the battery. I think part of my problem was the stock plastic coating on the battery tie down bar was peeled back and the battery was against the metal. Theoretically that shouldn't make much difference, but batteries do funky thinks. Mine was actually corroding where the tie down was touching it. I got it all cleaned up, sprayed plasti-Dip on the clean tie down (I removed all the original plastic that was peeling off) and I put small slices of plastic between the battery and the tie down. Plus I put a piece of plastic under the battery on the factory fender mount. I didn't have any issue this morning, and I think I solved my problem
I believe cleaning it all up was the key!

Good Luck! Sorry to hi-jack your thread

Spulen81

I had this come up recently. I had no power draws at all.. I even pulled the clock fuse. I had new power and ground cables and an new battery. The car would drive around fine but the battery would die after a couple days.

My alternator and battery both had 14V with barely any difference between them. In my case it was my alternator that was the problem. The diodes went bad. When this happens the alt. puts out plenty of voltage but not enough amperage. AND when the diodes are bad the alt. will become a parasitic drain and kill your battery. Just something to check out. A load test will pin point this problem.

mr_schuster

Have you checked your battery drain with a meter yet? Whats the draw?

grant526

I'm hoping it's not my alternater. It's only a couple years old and is a remaned high-output unit.