My battery dies after sitting for a week or two. I suspect there is a short somewhere but am unsure how to locate it. There is nothing otherwise wrong with the car, except for the ABS light stays on and has for the past few years and the driver side window motor is getting weak again (replaced twice already) ... any ideas?

When I drive it, it runs fine.

Things I've done in the past:
New alternator
New Optima battery
Cleaned connections

 

Do you have any amplifiers in the car? My friend killed many Optima batteries by having a few amps and his alternator couldn't handle the capacity so it wouldn't charge the battery correctly.

 

Actually I do. What's the best way to test to see if that's the problem?

Thanks

 

Really no way test. A bigger alternator would fix it if thats the problem.

 

Paricidic draw test....connect a test light. Disconnect he NEG (I believe) batt terminal. Connect the test light on the NEG batt terminal and the other end to the NEG connection that goes to the batt. If the light is on *w/ the door closed and EVERYTHING OFF* then you have a draw. Pull fuses one by one untill the light goes off. When the light goes off then trace it further from there. disconnect accessories...etc.....try the amp fuse first..

My car has been sitting for a while back home and my father said he disconnected the amp fuse and it was fine...

Sitting for a few weeks would kill the batt w/ an amp connected. Depending on the size of the amp it would only work the alt harder and you would notice a dimming of lighting and other effects. When the bass hits it effects the amperage of the batt, the alt tries to recarge that insufficiency...in tern swmoking the alt. It happened in a couple cars that I had. If you only have like a 250-700 W-MAX amp I would suggest getting a Capacitor and disconnecting the amp when the car will not be driven for a while..

Caps: .5 Farad for an amp UPTO 500 watts....1.0 Farad amps w/ UPTO 1000 watts... ETC.....

 

Well if its drawing less then a volt the test light won't light...use a multi meter if you're going to do this test, a test light just says hey theres some voltage here *maybe* if it doesn't light it doesn't mean theres no voltage.

 

True, I figured that this morning when I woke up.