come out to the car in the morning and the battery is dead. typically one would think that something is draining the battery, say a dome light, possibly radio left on if that would work, etc.

brand new battery in the car, has worked for the last month with no issues so i throw a charger on it for 4-5 hours. charger says it's good and the car turns over, little bit of sluggish while trying but it manages.

drive the car for 30 min, stop and shut it off... 30 min fires right up. drive for another 30 min, stop and shut it off... 30 min later try to fire and it's dead.

so i jump start the car and take her home, drive for 45 min to get it home and let it sit over night. come out in the morning and it's dead. throw it on the charger for another 5 hours, go to turn it over and the guage on the charger drops to dead as i'm doing this.

all signs say the battery is dead, possible it could be bad even though it's new but the fact it worked great for a month troubles me. what is a good way to test the battery to see if there is a constant drain somewhere?

any other things i can do to isolate the problem and see if it really is the battery?

 

Jeff. disconnect your neg. cable from the battery, now connect one end of a test light to the neg cable, and touch the light end to the batterys neg. terminal, if it lights up, you've got a draw. Now if it does light up, pull one fuse at a time till the light goes out, the last fuse you pulled before the light went out will be the circuit causing the draw. Hope this helps???

 

Test lights are BS, get a decent meter from Sears for $20. You'll know exactly how much is being drawn. Any draw under 50mA is considered not to be parasitic.

 

either way i appreciate both replies. i don't have an open shop near by so i can at least try the test light until monday. i need a meter anyhow so i'll pick one of those up and see what it draws too.

thank you!

 

ok well i used the test light and it lit up so for now i guess i'll try the fuses.

 

ok it's the arc fuse... any ideas as to what the problem is?

 

There is a orange wire going from the ARC fuse to the battery power input on the stock radio system installed in your car. There is also a yellow wire going from the RADIO fuse to the ignition power input of the stock radio system in your car. Is your radio system stock or have you put an aftermarket system in there that might be pulling an excessive charge from the battery?

 

i have a complete custom interior sound system setup. however everything but the radio has it's own fuse box and grounds.