Ok, so I did a search first and found nothing on this so here it goes. I've had a battery drain for a while. At this point I've almost killed my 2nd Optima battery in 2 mo. SO here's what I did. First I disconnected the negative power wire from the battery. Next I put a test light to the negative post on the battery and connected it to the cable. Light immediatly lit up. Pulled all the plugs, light stayed on. Jacked the car up and pulled all the starter wires off. Light goes out.

Ok, so now we know it's in the starter area. So I put the large cable that goes directly to the battery on. Light is off. Put on of the small cables on, light is off. Last I put the connection that has 2 wires going into it on, light turns on.

So here's the Question of the day: What is this connection and why would it be causing the battery to drain?

Also, now my new mini starter will not turn over. I think it might be dead. Is this actually the cause of the problem?

Help please, I'm despirate at this point.


Thanks,
Eric

 

The connection with the 2 wires is what carries power to the interior of the car; they feed battery to the ignition switch, headlight switch, brake light switch, dome lights, etc. About half the car is fed from each one. So it's safe to say that your battery drain is somewhere in your car.

That's really helpful, eh?

Try pulling the fuses one at a time and see if any one of them eliminates or at least reduces the current. You might want to use an ammeter instead of a test light, a test light will light with very little current, and might be very difficult to tell when something changes.

Some of the other circuits in the car that don't have fuses get their power from a little terminal board mounted above the parking brake release lever. If you look way up in there, on the side of the car, you'll see a whole bunch of red and orange wires plugged into it. Lots of optional equipment such as power seats, power windows, rear window defogger, etc. get their power that way. Since it's draining the battery, ine can reasonably assume it will be one of the red wires, which go to things that want battery (power seats or defogger) as opposed to things powered from ignition (power windows).

That's one of the most tedious things to troubleshoot, there are no shortcuts, just disconnect stuff until you zero in on it.

 

if it takes the battery a couple of days to drain then I would check the rear hatch pulldown, these are notorious for getting jammed or otherwise fubared and draining the battery trying to operate. as for the starter, is it possible that you got the wires hooked up wrong when you disconnected it to test for the drain ???

 

No, those wires only go on 1 terminal. After I found the drain, I continued to put the nut on to see if I could at least get it to start.

 

Right... they go to the big terminal on the starter and hook at the same place as the battery cable. They therefore have battery on them. They carry it up along the bell housing flange, across the firewall, under the brake booster, and to the huge plug under the left end of the windshield. 2 more wires plug into them there, and carry battery power to all the various points where it needs to go. All that other stuff is at the far end of them.

Do you understand how wires work?