whenever my car is left unattended for more than a period of 24 hours it will no longer start, this isnt occasional, its pretty much guarnteed and its not slightly drained, its out, the starter wont even give me a whirl ...bring out the jump box, put it on and it fires right up no probs...
1. the alternator is throwing voltage back at the battery fine
2. i have not had my system hooked up for months
3. my volt gauge is pretty much useless since it swings back and forth like a freaking clock
4. my fans are no longer hotwired and they dont come on until about ~160*
5. the characters at autozone tested my batt. and came up with a clean bill of health
any advice would be helpful right about now

 

I had that problem with my 83, it would drain it in about a day and a half. I bought a new battery and it still did it. And never found out what was causing it because we got rid of the car. I'd start checking fuses, wires, connections. All those could help drain it over time.

 

I'm there right now with my 89


checked hatch, head lights, turn lights,a dn I gotta get off my *** and uplug the fuse for the radio next.

 

Make sure the interior light(on the rearview mirror) isnt on manually.. I have made that mistake...

Did Autozone conduct a load test????? How many CCA did it show??? Even if it shows good, if the CCA is low, that could be the problem, and a cell is going bad..

 

you obviously have a short somewhere, if the battery and alternator are good.
Try disconnecting one fuse at a time, and see which circuit is causing it to drain, once you know that, see what is on that fuse, and check for shorts.

 

Are there any that should not be pulled at all?

 

the light(s) isn't/aren't on, im cool with the guys at AZ if they felt the batt wasnt good they would give me a new one since its less than a year old

 

Here's what you want to do. First, shut the car off and measure the current flow across the battery terminals with an amp meter. Now you know how much is flowing out of the battery, so you have a rough idea what to look for. If you've got another "good" computer controlled car around, check it too because you will always have some draw from the clock, computer, etc. Now you should have a good idea of normal, and what your car flows.

OK, now you can either pull fuses one at a time (disabling circuits) and recheck across the battery, when the current flow drops, you know which circuit is the problem. You can also measure the flow by checking amps thru the fuses. They have little check posts on the top, test across each one to see which one is flowing amps. Fuses stay in place.

Now, if you can't find the draw, then it's either between the fusebox and battery, or it's on an auxiliary circuit not going thru the fuse box, like a stereo system.

If it used to have a system, that's the first place I'd check. 90% of the time problems come from where it's been messed with. Good luck!

 

sweet thanks for the info....are there any typical values i should see for testing?

 

this happened to me once as well. the problem turned out to be a bad connection at the battery. The car had been sitting for a couple months and there was some rust build up on the connection. wire brush did the trick.

 

well i just went out there and found 3 fuses that were using juice....11.89 volts at the battery with them in and 12.01 w/o...they were the pcm, pwr accy, and courtesy lights...but theyre always on, so theres not much i can do about that
ive cleaned the terminals, grounds, and posts connected to the battery
any other ideas as to what it can be?

 

You checked voltage, not amperage. Big difference, you probably won't find it with a volt meter. For DC current, think of it like water, voltage is pressure. Amps is flow, like gallons per hour. The amp check is much more sensitive.

The big question is how many amps are those circuits flowing? Please re-read my earlier post. A 1 or 2 amp draw is significant. Determine amps flowing across the battery, compare to amps in the suspect circuit. Are the numbers similar, if yes, then that's the circuit. But if you're seeing 2 amps at the battery, and that circuit is flowing 0.1 amps, then the real problem is the other 1.9, follow me?

If it is the circuit that you mention, then you need to investigate what's on that circuit, and repeat the amp test at various points in the circuit. "PWR accessory" sounds like the kind of circuit that might be involved with a custom stereo install. Hmmmm, coincidence?

If you think you've found it, charge the battery, pull the fuse, and see what happens overnight. Simple check.

You probably won't get more direct advice for an electrical problem. They tend to be more case by case unique than mechanical problems, and it just requires patience, research, and common sense. Good Luck!

 

Hey! I know this post is old, but I'm experiencing the exact same problem. Did you ever determine the cause?

I started having the issue after soldering the front door speaker wires to the speaker. Could I have created a short by hitting something while taking the door panels off?

Thanks for any replies!

 

possibly could have scratched a wire and torn away the plastic casing insulates the wire

 

In my case, it turns out that the alternator was bad, but not in the usual way.

I like to be unique !

The alternator has a small feed wire on it that supplies current to the windings, I believe. For whatever reason, this would not shut off on my alternator ( when the car was off/ ignition off) , and over the course of a 12 hour workday would drain the battery enough to where the car had to be jumped.

It's worth a look, but the only way you could tell would be with a multi meter as even if you take the alternator off, it will still test OK.

True, the current output is fine, but that was not the problem.

Hope this helps !

Britt