StreamlineZ28

Battery has been dying in the car over the last few months and now it dies every night sometimes in as little as ten hours. cant find a short i have taken out every fuse and unplugged everything from the battery except the main line off the positive and negative and it still drains overnight.

any ideas of what it could still be. could a bad ground drain the battery or what. what ever it is has something to do with the main power im sure because with the fuses out there shouldnt be a short in something like a trunk light or anything. it should have no power drain at all. pulled out every fuse incar, and under hood and unplugged alternator and it still drains

it is driving me crazy and i cant affprd to take it to a shop so i can pay 60 bux an hour as they chase a short or what ever. who know what it would end up costing.

any ideas?

Pandamonkey

Could just be a bad battery.
Even if it's new, it could still be a faulty cell.

If it was me, in the short term I would an automatic battery charger in order to insure it stays topped up all the time.

I've heard of people getting two faulty batteries in a row.

That kind of stuff will make a person mental trying to find the problem.

Good luck dude.

NJSPEEDER24

Sounds like somethin is draining the battery overnight. Somethings using up power. Look around. Could also be a bad battery I suppose.

HBHRacing

if you have a test light you can remove the neg battery termonal. Place the clip of the testlight on the cable and touch the probe to the battery itself. you will usualy get a pretty dim light. If it;s very bright you probably have a draw. But I am willing to bet it's just a bad batery. Autozone can test the charging system for free.

teke184

unplug the alternator...

i've seen bad alternators drain BRAND NEW batteries over nite.

NJSPEEDER24

That's true.

But, you could also get a voltmeter and touch the positive lead to the postive terminal on the battery and ground lead to the battery top..sometimes there's a path created on top of the battery due to corrosion, leakin electolyte (don't ask) somehow..if you're getting more than .5 volt draw, then that means you're draining.

StreamlineZ28

im on the 4th battery and 3rd alternator, i know im getting a draw i just cant find it. even with every fuse in the car pulled i still get a draw. so im thinkin it is something like a bad ground or the starter or something. i unplugged the voltage regulator and still got a draw maybe ill try the main power line from the alternaotr.

just wondering if you have any ideas of what could drain the battery with all the fuses pulled

LT-14me

Do you have a system in your car? If so your amp could be on and drawing the power. Happened to me awhile ago then i got a kill switch for it.

Jay-Roll

Get a quick disconnect on your positive battery terminal in the meantime. That way when your done driving the car each night you can just quickly unhook the battery so it's good to go in the morning. No sense in ruining several batteries until you track down the issue. I know it's kinda a PITA but still easier than unhooking the battery normally each time, and definately easier than charging the battery each morning. I second the comment on a system. Had the same problem in another car. Had a dedicated power cable to the amp. Turns out my remote wire from the head unit wasn't turning off the amp and it was just drawing power all night long.

NJSPEEDER24

Like I said, check the battery top for corrosion..try the test I described above. That would make the most sense, especially now that I learned you pulled all the fuses...

scottso

...and if that battery has been drained more than a few times - it's probably no good now anyway. Only a deep cycle is meant to operate like that - and it can really do some damage to a battery.

1stz28

You could check circuits that are not fused such as hot wire from battery to starter, heavy guage charge wire from alt to battery, supply to fuse panel. You can place a multimeter (set on DC 10amp scale to start in case draw is more than maximum fused scale) in series with the positive battery cable (pos lead to pos terminal, neg lead to pos cable) to see how much current is actually being drawn and also to determine when the fault is located. I would also check the alt output at both the back of the alt and then at the battery itself to see if the full charge is making it all the way to the battery...should be somewhere between 14 and 14.5 VDC. Just some ideas, hope it helps.