Hello

I have a 1991 Firebird Formula that I bought new and had a lot of customization done. The electricial stuff includes stereos, car alarms, a car phone, blue lights underneath (you know those things :P). I've replaced the battery like 7 times over the years with Diehard golds. It has a new one in there now.

My car dies or gets darn close to it if it sits in the garage for a week in the summer. In the winter, it dies in 2 or 3 days.

I've had multiple mechanics try to find the issue over the years. They have disconnected the blue lights and the amp and speaker box in the back, and it still happens. I replaced my alarm with a higher end Viper (just alarm, no fancy stuff), and I leave it disarmed when it's in the garage, but it still happens. I also removed the phone (the wiring is still around though).

One thing I noticed that was weird, before the speaker and amp were disconnected, was that every now and then the amped speaker box would make a quick high pitched chirp for no apparent reason while the car and stereo was OFF. But now they're disconnected I guess it's not them directly because it's still happening...

One mechanic recently checked it with a meter.. he said there was a slight drain when the car went off, which he said was from the alarm, then it went away, and there was no pull at all. He said nothing was draining that he could see, so he couldn't pinpoint it. Could something be randomly draining? Is it what was causing that occasional "chirp" in the speakers? Everyone has told me it's the alarm, but I've left my other car, WITH it's alarm active, sitting in the snow for a little over 2 weeks, and when I started it it started up instantly. So how can my Firebird die in 3 days in the semi heated garage, even after replacing the alarm, and with the alarm off?

Can anyone please suggest a way to figure out what could be draining intermittently, or suggest things to look for, or anything? Is it really the alarm and I'm just in denial? It's driving me nuts!

Thanks

 

its definatly a parasitic drain. i highly doubt it is yur alarm. what all "add ons" are constantly hot?

 

My guess is on a short somewhere. Probably a wire frayed and is very lightly brushing against the body. Not the easiest thing to find.

 

if that were the case, a fuse would blow, or you would have an electrical fire, if the circuit was unprotected. so thats not a possibility.

 

With a dead short, yes. If the wire were brushing against a part of the body which for some reason had a decent amount of resistence, then it would simply be a somewhat crudely regulated power drain and wouldn't blow the fuse. If the wire were brushing against a small rust spot, this could happen.

 

i doubt you will find aspot as you describe that would have enough resistance to cause a "regulated" power drain. i seriously doubt this is the case.

 

Well theres definately a current draw. Your best beat is to set up a digital meter between your battery and negative terminal. Start pulling fuses until that draw goes away. That will at least tell you what circuit it's drawing from. then disconnect each device on that circuit until the draw goes away. Before you know it, you will have found the culprit.

PS- People are too quick to blame alarm systems for current draw.

 

Thank you for all the replies

Sorry, I'm a newbie at this stuff, by constantly hot do you mean always on? The alarm should be the only thing, and that isn't even activated (don't know if it matters)...

I have been told by garages that nothing shows up on their meter so I guess it's intermittent? Or is that not possible? I don't know if the fuse fix (removing one at a time) will work for me because of this. I don't even know how intermittent it is. Maybe I can get my own meter and just run the test multiple times in a row... or is there a meter that can stay on for like 24 hours and record everything it sees? I'm ready to try a heart monitor ..

 

"Hot" means that circuit is powered; likewise "constantly hot" means constantly powered. On just about every modern car, there are always a few circuits that are always hot such as clocks, radios, alarms (even when they're not armed), etc., but these loads generally do not draw very much current at all. If you're discharging a battery in a week, then you have a decent current draw somewhere in the car -- probably somewhere in the order of an average of 4 amps or more.

Well, a meter is typically real-time so even if you left it connected for 24 hours, you'd still have to be looking at it when the current drain happened or it wouldn't show up. There are meters which log data, but they're normally pretty expensive.

I still believe that it is probably an intermittent short which is for some reason not a dead short. If this is the case, then the amount of time it takes to discharge will vary from one week to the next. If it's an intermittent short, then vibration from driving is probably causing the short to get better/worse.