1MAX2NV

iTrader: (5)

I'm not driving my car much these days since I'm working on putting in some new stuff. Waiting for parts. My battery never last more than a week. It will drop down to 50% capacity. I have to put a charger on it once a week. I think I have a slow drain somewhere. How do I trace the drain? Or is this normal?

24KP-I-M-P

im having the same problem,ever since i accidently left the heated seats on and drained the battery starting up has been rough

Ravq

Maybe it's just the battery. My car sits for a week at a time on occassion and it never loses charge.

Maxstilln

Tony,
I had the same problem, turned out to be a bad cell in my battery. So I had to go out and buy another Yellow topped Optima, old one lasted me almost 4 years, not bad. Check and make sure none of your internal lights are on, and try starting the car every 2 or 3 days and letting it run for a few minutes. Really it sounds like your battery might be done, espically if I had to give you a jump start at HIN AC. Is it the orignal battery, I don't remember?

1HOTMAX

iTrader: (1)

what you can do is take it to a shop to have them drain the battery down to zero and charge it up to maximum. take it to autozone, they test for free!

if that is not the case, you have a drain some place, might be a switch that is jammed, or just a light that is just on all the time and you just don't know it's on like trunk light or something like that.

alarm with fancy led's can drain batteries too.

btw, tony please e-mail me with when mattcalder's manifold (polished) AND is ready to be shipped to nyc. thanks.

onehotmax@hotmail.com

AllGo

iTrader: (1)

If you really need to track down the drain here is a simplified description. Remove your negative bat term and run a Volt meter with the red lead at the bat post and the black lead on the terminal prefferably with some alligator clips or something that will hold it. Set the meter to amps, and read your drain. 0.9 amps or less is normal for ecu and such. If higher than this, you can eliminate the circuits by pulling one fuse at a time and checking the reading, when you find the right circuit the amps will drop to a good 0.9 or less and then you can just find out what is running on that circuit and track it. You can also look at the diagrams in the Haynes to find out more specifics on each circuit. Hope this helps.

1MAX2NV

iTrader: (5)

Thanks. Very good info.

ny96max

yeah... what he said

humaras

I have noticed that since I haven't driven my car in about two weeks now that the battery is no longer fully charged. Usually the "eye" of my battery is green but after leaving my car sitting for about two weeks now, I saw that they "eye" is dark (not green)...would this mean that the battery is loosing charge?

The other question I have is whether starting the car for few minutes but not driving really help the charging of the battery because I had thought that the charging process to the battery was linked to the "movement" of the drive axle?

I was wondering if anyone may be able to clarify these points for me.

thanks

AllGo

iTrader: (1)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by humaras
[B]I have noticed that since I haven't driven my car in about two weeks now that the battery is no longer fully charged. Usually the "eye" of my battery is green but after leaving my car sitting for about two weeks now, I saw that they "eye" is dark (not green)...would this mean that the battery is loosing charge?

The other question I have is whether starting the car for few minutes but not driving really help the charging of the battery because I had thought that the charging process to the battery was linked to the "movement" of the drive axle?

I was wondering if anyone may be able to clarify these points for me.

thanks

The green eye is something that is not an entirely accurate measure of battery performance. Most people think that their battery is good if your headlights are on and your fan motor will blow, but when you go to crank your vehicle nothing happens or maybe some clicking. You must know that between 150-200 amps is what is takes to crank the avg. 6 cylinder, a great deal more than running such accesories. How old is your battery? With your driving habits a battery's life will be shortened from infrequent use. If it is more than 3yrs old I would suspect it was the battery. It sounds like you have the AC Delco battery, I haven't seen others with that feature(green eye). Your alt. charges your battery when the engine is running, the belts are spinning off the crankshaft.

humaras

ALLGO,

thanks for that answer. Yes, in fact I do have the AC Delco battery that is from 1999, so it is close to being three years old. As for the "eye" of the battery, I usually look at the eye just to make sure the battery indicator says there is enough charge. However since I went on a trip recently for close to three weeks and haven't driven the car, I warmed it up like the post said a few days ago. But at the same time, when I popped the hood and looked around, I then noticed the battery indicator "eye" being dark, so I wasn't sure if this was just because I let the car sit around for awhile and thus the battery was being drained by the basic accessories of the car.

So from what you are saying then, I don't need to drive car around in order for everything to recharge itself. cool. thanks for that clarifcation.

Bri--

[QUOTE]Originally posted by AllGo
[B]