Door Ajar Switch

Here's a stupid question... I think I have a parasitic drain, or my battery is really going bad even though they say it is good after charging. I want to check for draw, but where is the door ajar switch to override? I want it to look like it does overnight, but can't pull fuses to check on the inside without the door open. if there is a larger than expected draw.

My other issue is that I now get to wait for a new fuse for my meter since I disconnected the negative, then put the meter in between to check amps. Well, the headlights and parking lights come on when the battery is connected. I think that is about 18 A through the 11 A fuse in my meter... So, when I get a new fuse, I will run a separate wire from the battery to the cable. When the lights go off, hook up the meter and disconnect the other wire. I SHOULD be in the milliamp range then and see what kind of draw there really is.

Also, There is a 30 A fuse under the hood that says it goes to the interior fuse panel. If I pull that and no change, does that really drive all the interior fuses so I can ignore looking at that?

Roll the dimmer wheel (dashboard illumination) all the way down until you feel an indent. That'll overrrides the dome light. Some call it sleeping baby mode. Some watch too much TV and think its an SSV exclusive feature designed for SWAT team night time operations.

Moot point though. The dome lights automatically extinguish themselves after 10 minutes thanks to, ironically for you, the "Battery Saver" feature.

Flexpedition said:

Roll the dimmer wheel (dashboard illumination) all the way down until you feel an indent. That'll overrrides the dome light. Some call it sleeping baby mode. Some watch too much TV and think its an SSV exclusive feature designed for SWAT team night time operations.

Moot point though. The dome lights automatically extinguish themselves after 10 minutes thanks to, ironically for you, the "Battery Saver" feature.

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I did roll that down to disable the interior lights. Wasn't sure if anything else gets triggered with the door open though. I don't want to chase a bunch of other stuff if I can help it. I still think it is probably the battery... Have a 5 year warranty on a WalMart one in there that is about 2.5 years old. They did a load test and said it was good. Of course, I had just run 20 miles from work where I had to get it jumped to start. It is supposed to be a 650 or 700 CCA battery and they measured 620. I may let it sit and take it out to take in there to have it tested. My guess is it will read bad then. I did want to verify I didn't have anything killing it first.

If you can't find a separate switch along the doorframe then it's likely integrated into the door latch. Have you tried closing the latch with the side of a screwdriver?

Does your rear wiper work properly? It's known to get seized up and drain the battery.

sjwelds said:

Does your rear wiper work properly? It's known to get seized up and drain the battery.

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I checked that first. I'm at the point of being sure it's the battery. Here's how I did the parasitic drain test. It's a little different than I've seen, but you don't blow up fuses in your meter this way. (I now have spares) .

1) Disconnect the negative cable.
2) Clamp the positive lead of your meter and a 1 foot or so piece of wire that can handle 10 amps or so. I used a section of 14 gauge lamp cord with both wires twisted together.
3) disconnect the wire from your meter just to be sure.
4) clamp the negative lead of your meter to the negative battery terminal.
5) set your meter to 20 Amp of you have it Some are 10 only That will be fine if you do it this way.
6) connect other end of lamp wire to the battery. You are going to leave it connected for a bit without removing it. Wait till the lights go out.
7) with the lamp cord still connected, plug in the leads to your meter. (still set on 10 or 20 Amp). It should read 0 on the meter.
8) take off the lamp cord from the negative terminal. If you do it before the lights go off, you will be above a couple Amps or so. Mine was about 3.
9) the Amp reading drops in stages. Mine went to .70 then .50 for min or so. It stayed around .20 for 10 min.
10) I think the 10 min mark is when the power saving kicks in. The meter showed 0 on the 20 Amp setting.
11) now we want to see what it is really drawing in sleep.
12) with everything still connected, put the lamp cord back on the battery.
13) depending on the meter, you will probably have to move the lead from 20amp to the milliamp setting. Do that and set meter to milliamps.
14) take the lamp ford back off. Mine now reads 12 mA to 24 mA. There is an occasional jump once a min or so to 100 mA.

It should not be draining the battery, so I'll remove it and have them test it again when it dies the next time without charging it.