Within the last week I've experienced issues with my battery being drained so much that I've had to jump it twice and have now started using a trickle charger at night. The OEM battery is only 8 months old and the latest episode has me scratching my head. Here's the what happened today.

Put the trickle charger on last night. Battery was fully charged.

Drove for 45mins to visit my parents. Three hours later when I'm leaving to go home my battery doesn't have enough juice to turn over.

Call CAA to get a jump and test the battery and alternator.

Once started the Charging test yields good results. No load 14.52V, Loaded 14.55V

Drain Test Results - 0.18A

Guy at CAA says the battery and alternator are good and I need to charge the battery. I drive home in 45 minutes and hook the battery back up to the trickle charger and it charges in 1hr.

I'm not confident that the issue is resolved. Anyone have some insight or suggestions as to what could be the cause of the mysterious battery drain?

 

Do you have any aftermarket electronic devices in your car?

 

Maybe obvious, but are the battery cable connections clean and tight?

 

Yes, I had my mechanic install a Pioneer Avic 920BT over six months ago. However he didn't install the connection for the radio so I had him connect the radio two weeks ago... I thought the timing was a bit fishy that I'm now having the battery drain issues. Perhaps the unit is not grounded properly?

Everything seems tight and the terminals look clean.

 

Warranty on battery? Usually do here. If new one drains , prob narrows down more.. I had 2 newbies in my dually and noticed it was slightly weak cranking, took to them, 1 out of the 2 was bad already somehow. Replaced free and I'm all good now. Unless you have a light or so staying on accidentally. GL.

 

I'm going to stop by the dealer and pay a visit to the parts counter. Pretty sure the battery is under warranty.

 

OK… I suspect that’s the problem. Your mechanic connected a continuous (not an ignition-switched) power line to the H/U. The ground wire is correct, but the H/U is drawing from the continuous power wire. If you swap this connection (it’s usually a yellow wire) with an ignition-switched wire (usually a red wire) your problem will go away. --Spike

 

If that were the case, wouldn't the HU stay powered even with the ignition turned off? In one of my Alfa Spider's I actully have the HU wired that way so I can listen to music when I washing/waxing the car or just doing other stuff in the garage.

 

Hey Spike - is their a way to power the HU down completely before i shut the car off. It always comes on once you turn the ignition to the on position. If I was able to shut it down perhaps it will not draw power.

 

Should be able to hold the power button or 'SRC' and it'll power off.

 

Screw that take it back to your mechanic and have him properly wire the HU

 

Na def would. I would just diy it. Just saying that's how to power down if wanted to.

 

It's unlikely it's your new HU if the problem manifested 6 months after you had it installed. You probably have an parasitic battery drain. You can check the for the leak by disconnecting your negative battery cable and running a multimeter in series and checking the amperage. If it's more than 1 milliamp, then you probably have a bad component. You can pull fuses one at a time until the drain disappears and check that against the fuse diagram to narrow down the suspects. You can also do an amperage check by placing the multimeter's leads on the terminals of each fuse (though the Z's fuses are TINY and are a pain in the *** to check.) A lot of times, you'll find it's a bad switch or assembly. You'll need a wiring diagram and some patience to find it. Here are some good sources of info on how to do the diagnostic:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars...battery-drains

ScannerDanner Parasitic Drain Video [ ] [ ] [ ]

Be sure you watch all of the ScannerDanner videos if you haven't done this before. He's one of the best resources on the web, and you might fry yourself or your engine if you do this procedure incorrectly. Again, be sure you have a wiring diagram and know how to read it before you start. You can learn how to read wiring diagrams by visiting the realfixesrealfast channel on Youtube. They've been posting a lot about reading wiring diagrams lately.

 

^^ I believe that Sickboy101 reports that the battery drain happened after the H/U was connected…
--Spike

 

^^Correct, drain issues appeared after my mechanic connected my radio two weeks ago.

Hopefully I don't have to solve the Matrix to get this fixed...

 

I would have your mechanic recheck the connections he recently made to your H/U. The H/U may appear to “turn off” (i.e., “go dark”) but still draws a small amount of current.

I doubt it’s a faulty ground. The problem is more likely connecting a continuous power source to the H/U (many H/Us have multiple power connections), or it could be a faulty H/U.

Some H/U’s have a continuous power supply in addition to the ignition switched power connection. The continuous power supply allows the H/U to maintain user preference-setting such as programmed station-selections. That connection is “intelligent” so that it won’t drain the car’s battery, and it typically goes to some type of internal battery in the H/U.

The easy test here is disconnecting the H/U. If that fixes the battery drain… then you know.

I hope you get this fixed soon. I know how frustrating this stuff can be. --Spike

 

Ahhh... my bad. Didn't see that bit about the mechanic hooking it up when the problem started. If that's the case, then check everything that hooks into the stereo's circuit or just disconnect the stereo and see if the problem goes away. If that's the case, then the short could be in the HU itself.

 

Thanks for all your help/suggestions Spike. I made a visit to my mechanic and he did some re-wiring on the H/U. The antenna and amp seemed to be wired incorrectly. We did some battery drain tests after the H/U installed and everything came back normal. Hopefully these issues are behind me.

 

I bet the problem is solved. Thanks for posting and adding more info... You make this site interesting.

--Spike

 

We'll it looks like the Battery issues are NOT behind me. The pass few days I've been monitoring my cranking amps. Every day I've gone out to check by turning the key to the on position and my gauge is only getting to 10 volts. Luckily I've had enough juice to turn the engine over and get it started. Please note that it just barely started... I've continued to let the car run for 10-15 minutes so that it gets to an ideal operating temperature. While the engine is running the voltage meter is usually at around 14-14.5 volts so looks like the alternator is doing it's job. Furthermore the car starts right after with no issues and the voltage meter reads almost 13 on my meter when on the ON position. However if I turn on some accessories such as the blower it drops the voltage gauge down to 10 within a couple of seconds.

Perhaps I have a short in white box that connects to the climate controls? I'm going to be storing my car for the winter in a couple of weeks and would really like to get the issue resolved. Another option is to put my OEM Bose unit back in a see if this resolves the issue.