I keep having my battery swapped... free fortunately... from walmart. If I've had a battery in for more than about a month... it can't go undriven more than a few days without going dead completely... then I have to swap batteries again. VERY FRUSTRATING...

Help?

 

I usually start by disconnecting one battery cable and putting a voltmeter in line, it's probably reading battery voltage.... pull fuses one by one and see which one lets the voltage drop , that narrows it down.
Be sure to keep the door switch pushed in while doing this and all acc. turned off and key off and out of the ign.
When you find which fuse is being loaded , you can check out the acc. it feeds, there are more shortcuts to take but it would take too long to explain here.
you may have to pull the underhood fuses also but start with the dash fuses

 

I'll definately try this. I only have an analog voltmeter... is that ok? For some reason I thought I remembered someone talking about non-digital voltmeters damaging ECM/PCMs?

 

analog is fine, actually preferred in using it this way

 

I don't think I was doing somethin right... wasn't accomplishing anything.

Question tho... if I had a taillight (#2057) that has two filaments... and only one would light... even with the brakes pressed... could that bulb affect my battery in any way?

 

no, bad bulb won't do it

 

What does that mean.... if the meter wasn't reading anything then you don't have a draw thats going to drain the battery, even if it has a draw ,as long as it's well below battery voltage ...it's probably ok.
The computer will draw a small amount of voltage with the key off and everything working right

 

BUMP...

Drove my car 1 mile to my house. 20 mins later... dead in the driveway. Left it there and jogged the mile back to school.

My mom called and said she was hearing a sound.. from what i understand... it's like the clicking sound you hear when you are hooking up the second terminal on ur battery and trying to get it tight and somethin is always clicking. She was hearing that just walking past my car.... then opened the door... it stopped. Closed... clicks... open... stops.

Could this be related to somethin draining my battery? What could this be?

The sooner i figure this out the better, cuz it's my only transportation.

Thanks guys

 

You need to be measuring current, not voltage. When you find right circuit, the current will drop.

 

Disconnect the + on the bat.Put one meter lead to the cable and the other to the bat. If ya have a short it will show voltage(put meter on V). Like was said pull the fuses under the hood and the side of the dash until the meter drops voltage and that is the circuit that is pulling the bat down. It should drop to "0" but may stay on a couple of volts 'cause of the clock. If no voltage is shown then reconnect the bat and put the meter one to + one to - and start(if bat is up if not get it charged) hold at 2000RPM's and it should come up to 13.8-14.2. If it don't the bat is week or the alt is bad. If it comes up to 14V turn on the lights,it should hold 14V then the air and it should hold 14V.If it don't the alt. is bad.

WHEW

 

Not a good idea to put a meter in series when set to voltage. Parallel for voltage...series for current. Too much current will toast the meter. There is a fuse in the meter to protect the circuit used to measure current.

 

Actually it probably won't hurt the meter, it's the lower current setting on some meters that isn't fused. Voltage setting has a very high impedence input so it won't draw much current. It is still current that is measured in series and voltage parallel. My mistake.

 

Disconnect a battery cable and put your test light in line with the battery cable, if the draw is big enough to drain the battery the light will light up.