meatwhistle

my battery goes dead after just 4 days if i don't start my truck. i have a new 800cca battery thats just 7 months old. i have not even started to install my system yet, so i am confused why my battery is going dead. if i drive my truck daily, i have no problems. could it be my alarm? how much power does an alarm drain out of your battery?

E-THUG

Your alarm could be the cause. I would look at the latest thing installed, if it was the alarm, it may be the problem. Turn off the car, dont arm and test to see if its drawing current?
I encountered some issues when one of the cells in the battery had broken on me, hit a bump and all of sudden the car would go mental, park it and be dead as a door nail.
Hook up a voltmeter and see if its draining slowly. Other than that, im lost

Again, im not a pro, but thats where i would start if i was sitting in my garage.

SweetnLow91SC

uhmmm..... small power drain could be real tough to locate.

you could disconnect the battery next time you're gonna leave it park for a few days, and see if its a battery issue or not.

Then to find the source of drain..... Put a test light between the batt ground and the ground terminal. usually a drain will light up dim on the test light. start unplugging stuff till the light goes out. and whatever item that made the light goes out is the source of drain.

* make sure the dome light is off when performing the test.

JohnVroom

The probem is either the battery or a load with the car off
If you swap batteries that will tell you idf it is the battery without test equipment

If it is a load it can be a little tougher without test equipment (glove compartment light, trunk light, amps that dont shut off etc.)

meatwhistle

thanks for all the advice guys, first i will switch batteries, and see if that solves my problem. hopefully its the battery because its still under warranty and if its faulty i will upgrade to a bigger one

Hz

if you have an alarm, a relay could be faulty and be creating a draw................not likely but possible...........

Loud Brown Kicker Colt

iTrader: (1)

i've seen that with an improperly installed starter kill :P

GrizZz

Ya, this is the kind of problems we work on every day.

You can check for a draw by disconnecting the ground at the battery, and hooking up a multi-meter between the ground cable and the negative post on the battery. The multi-meter must be capable of holding a 10amp load through it. You can also use a test light for this - hook it up between the cable and the battery and it'll light up if there's a draw.

There's probably a parasitic draw on the vehicle when it's parked. The first thing we check is the obvious, reading lamps, etc. Then check to make sure the hood light, glove box light, and trunk light are all shutting off when they should be. Those three lights are the most common problem, 90% of vehicles with off-key draws are fixed at this point.

If those check out, then next we check all aftermarket accessories. Alarm, cell phone equipment, aftermarket stereo's, etc. Trunk-mounted cd changers are often the culprit.

After checking those, then you start pulling fuses, one at a time, until you find whick circuit the problem is on.