Did bad door lock switch kill my battery?
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Joined: Jul 2011
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From: Augusta Township, MI
Car: 1985 IROC-Z
Engine: 383
Transmission: 700R4
Axle/Gears: 3.73
Did bad door lock switch kill my battery?
Hello all,
Sorry for the long post, I want to make sure to provide as much information as I can.
I have a built 1985 IROC-Z. I previously posted about battery issues/parasitic draw. I was unable to find any sort of draw, so I ended up replacing my Optimum battery with an Odyssey Performance one. I did this on April 1st of this year.
My car is not a daily driver, I take it out pretty infrequently. I've made it a point of driving it more this year and taking it for longer trips when I do. On average, the car sits between 8 & 9 days between trips, sometimes as long as 11 days. Since replacing the battery, I've had zero issues - the car starts right up every time.
On July 30th, my wife and I took the car for a ride and stopped for lunch. After lunch, I got in the car, hit the power door Unlock button, and got in. My wife and I noticed a reoccurring weird noise, it was the door locks constantly unlocking by themselves, like every 10 seconds. As we were driving home, we both kept trying to hit the Lock or Unlock buttons, but it kept doing it for a time. About 10 minutes from home, I hit the button and the noise stopped. Finished driving home, parked the car in the barn, and stayed near it for another 15 minutes, and no reoccurrence of the noise. I knew the switch was bad, but since it wasn't doing anything I assumed it was okay for the time being.
Cut to today, I went to drive the car and the battery is 100% dead - it won't light the dome light or run the fuel pump even. My assumption is that the switch was still drawing power even though it wasn't physically moving the locks, but I don't know enough about it to be certain. Is there some way to test this, or should I just replace the switch, charge the battery and see what happens?
A couple of other items: when I was driving the car to lunch, I thought I noticed it "surge" at one point, like the RPM's went up slightly and then dropped to wear the car idled rough for maybe 2-3 seconds, then everything went back to normal. I checked all the gauges when this happened including the alternator gauge and nothing was out of the ordinary but I'm wondering if that could've been a symptom of something bigger at play?
Finally, regarding the door lock switch itself. I put all new switches in the car when I rebuilt in in 2011 & 2012, but due to how and where I drive it, I literally never use the door lock switches. In those 10 years, I think this is probably the 3rd or 4th time I've used it, other than when I tested it after install. Can these things go bad from inactivity? Did I just get a bad switch and not know it because of how little I use it?
Sorry for the long post, I want to make sure to provide as much information as I can.
I have a built 1985 IROC-Z. I previously posted about battery issues/parasitic draw. I was unable to find any sort of draw, so I ended up replacing my Optimum battery with an Odyssey Performance one. I did this on April 1st of this year.
My car is not a daily driver, I take it out pretty infrequently. I've made it a point of driving it more this year and taking it for longer trips when I do. On average, the car sits between 8 & 9 days between trips, sometimes as long as 11 days. Since replacing the battery, I've had zero issues - the car starts right up every time.
On July 30th, my wife and I took the car for a ride and stopped for lunch. After lunch, I got in the car, hit the power door Unlock button, and got in. My wife and I noticed a reoccurring weird noise, it was the door locks constantly unlocking by themselves, like every 10 seconds. As we were driving home, we both kept trying to hit the Lock or Unlock buttons, but it kept doing it for a time. About 10 minutes from home, I hit the button and the noise stopped. Finished driving home, parked the car in the barn, and stayed near it for another 15 minutes, and no reoccurrence of the noise. I knew the switch was bad, but since it wasn't doing anything I assumed it was okay for the time being.
Cut to today, I went to drive the car and the battery is 100% dead - it won't light the dome light or run the fuel pump even. My assumption is that the switch was still drawing power even though it wasn't physically moving the locks, but I don't know enough about it to be certain. Is there some way to test this, or should I just replace the switch, charge the battery and see what happens?
A couple of other items: when I was driving the car to lunch, I thought I noticed it "surge" at one point, like the RPM's went up slightly and then dropped to wear the car idled rough for maybe 2-3 seconds, then everything went back to normal. I checked all the gauges when this happened including the alternator gauge and nothing was out of the ordinary but I'm wondering if that could've been a symptom of something bigger at play?
Finally, regarding the door lock switch itself. I put all new switches in the car when I rebuilt in in 2011 & 2012, but due to how and where I drive it, I literally never use the door lock switches. In those 10 years, I think this is probably the 3rd or 4th time I've used it, other than when I tested it after install. Can these things go bad from inactivity? Did I just get a bad switch and not know it because of how little I use it?
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