drain drain go away

[dano]

I have an 05 Expy, that is also experiencing a slow drain on my battery. If she sits for 2 to 3 days, I can go out to a dead battery. Today now, I went out to get some things out of it, probably opened doors and gate 6-8 times. Everything lit up okay. Went out a few hours later and battery was dead. Hooked up my charger and dome lites came on. Went in to check switch...off. Rolled the dash/dome switch to on position (rolled up), felt the click, lights went off. Rolled switch to dim dash lights position, lights still off. Rolled switch clear down to bottom, clicked again, all lights went off again. THEN... I went out again after battery had charged for 10 min., the light switch started working right. So now I'm really baffled, is the panel switch messing up or is a door switch causing it...any takers on this one???

 

[stamp11127]

Anytime your having problems with a battery going dead, the first thing you do is load test the battery after it has been fully charged. If you don't have a carbon pile tester you can use the starter motor, headlights and blower motor.
Put a good load on the battery for 15 seconds then read the battery voltage. I get concerned when it drops below 11 volts & change them out at 10.5 and under. Other people may not use those voltages as a guide - we use them to reduce our road calls.

Trouble shooting with a weak battery you will get erroneous results.

If the battery passes muster then I move on to parasitic draw.

 

[wadesdad]

Lube the he** out of the door latches. They might be hanging up. I use an old school stlye tin-man oiling can to inject oil in and around the mechanism. If it doesn't work, there are also YouTube videos on tracking down circuits that are causing power drains.

 

[FordandPolaris]

Pretty sure O'Reilly and Autozone will load test the battery for free. Start with that.

 

[dano]

Yeah, did all the above. Today was out loading hunting stuff in the Expy, had the rear gate open probably 5 min. Went to start it up and she turned over pretty slow, but started. I've had Wal Mart, AutoZone and Advance all load test the battery. All said battery good. Did it myself too, actually did it three times back to back and it still held up. I tried to do the parasitic drain test, but the voltage on the multi-tester kept fluxuating up and down, there was no steady voltage. (I used the Eric the Car Guy, YouTube video)

 

[toms89]

Age of battery??

Disconnect the battery after you shutdown before it sits overnight. Reconnect in the morning and if it doesn't start... may be time to replace.

 

[dano]

Got up this morning determined to find what's draining battery. Put chgr. on it to see that battery was down to 55% . Chgd. it, back up to 100%. Did the eric the car guy test on it. At first connection of multi meter, it shows there is a 3.32 amp draw, but only for a few seconds. The amps them start to trickle down to .51 mili amps. over a 21 to 22 second period of time. When down to .51, it holds there. I did the test three times with in 5 min. and each time the meter is connected, the amp draw starts out at 2.00 to 3.00 amp draw then goes down to .51.
Thought maybe that would help someone find my problem, since I did the test the right way now.

 

[stamp11127]

A milliamp is 1000th of an amp, the load you have is hardly anything - probably pcm and clock in the radio. That load should take weeks or months to pull a good battery down.

When you had the battery tested, did they use the toaster type tester?

Maintenance free battery or the pop top type? If it is the pop top, have you read the state of charge in each cell with a tester (the floating ball type)?

 

[dano]

drain drain goaway

Yes, AZ and ADvance, and myself used the "toaster" type tester. Wal Mart hooked it up to a hand held computer and she got a print out. And, oh yeah, krap. I can get a hydrometer and read the specific gravity... duh. See what happens to the mind when you don't use it very often (used to work in a Full service, service station...25 years ago, when that's all we used at the time to check batteries)

 

[stamp11127]

Just for giggles, charge the battery while disconnected from the car. Read the voltage 3-6hrs later. If it doesn't change you have ruled out an internal short in the battery. If it drops then you have an internal load.

The next step would be to connect the meter same as the draw test. Once the reading stabilizes at the .5mA start pulling one fuse at a time until you hit the circuit(s) that has the draw. Replace each fuse after pulling it. There will probably be multiple circuits that have a draw.
Once the circuit(s) is/are found keep the fuse out. Record the current battery voltage at this point and 3-6hrs later. You shouldn't see a drop.