in my quest to conquer this gremlin, i suspect that i also have a drain going on with my battery. i've done a search and read up on some of the other posts, but i don't think i'm doing it right. i printed out the procedure that trickster has posted on occasion, but my question is on the use of my meter. i have a digital, and for amps, it has the following options: 2000 "micro"amps, 20m, 200m, and 10A. assuming that the drain is read in milliamps, i selected the 200m range after hooking up between the neg batt post and batt cable. after waiting over a minute for the ecm, i selected the reading and got a straight "00.0". i thought that with even "parasitic" drain, it would at least show 10-75 MA. if i switch over to the 10MA scale, still shows nothing. this is all with no hood light and doors closed...

KAM

 

Sounds like you have a blown fuse in your meter. Also (stupid question), be sure that your red test lead is in the "Amps" port - it's different than measuring Volts/Ohms. Generally when measuring Amps, you want to start at the high end of the scale (10A), and work your way down. You'll probably find that the 200mA scale will show your actual reading. Anything 50mA (.050A) or less is generally considered an acceptable parasitic drain.

 

However when you first connect the battery the ECM (if you have one), stereo, etc, charges up and may draw as much as 7A for a split second. Very likely you blew a fuse.

 

well the meter still works, but i've got so many other issues with this damn thing right now, that if and when i ever find the problem, it will probably be the same culprit for the suspected drain. i'm so damn tired of trying to figure this out and am about ready to pay the big $ to have someone do it.

 

Could be a bad battery, too. Unhook the battery one night, and hook it back up the next day. If it still drains when unhooked, the problem is a bad battery. That's the only type of parasitic drain that will register 0.00 on a correctly functioning properly used ammeter.