after sitting two days my car will not start. The battery has like no power to turn the starter. It will only power the lights which are dim when it does.

So something is draining my battery. Where are the first places to check?

what would make the battery drain when the car is off?

 

I had the same problem about 4 months ago. Everynight i would park my car and everymorning it wouln't have enuff to crank over. I starterd pulling a fuse a day to see if i could find the short. Turns out it was the rectifier in my alternator! I would have it checked. If its good, start pulling fuses till the problem stops and thats the system the short is located in. hope this helps.

 

what is the rectifier and what does it do?

I will start pulling fuses but first i also have an alarm on it. Im not gonna put it for a night or two to see if there is a problem there.

anyone every have an alarm drain a car over night?

 

Never had an alarm drain my battery. I would try a couple things:
1. Take your car to a sears or other auto shop and have them test the alternator.
2. Take your battery to a place and have them test the battery.
3. Open the caps on the battery (be very careful the acid WILL burn your skin if it spills out) and see if the acid is at the top. If it is not at the top, boil and distill some water and put the water in the holes to fill the battery. Now charge the battery. 1 and 2 are the easiest.

 

To check if you do have a drain somewhere, first ensure everything is switched off. Make sure the interior light is not on, and your stereo is disconnected (the memory will affect this test). Remove the negative terminal on the battery and attatch a test lamp between the battery negative and the terminal you removed. If the light illuminates, you have a drain.

 

i got the problem myself (alternator is ok and a new batt). You might have to get a ground finder and track in in the wiring harness. Fun...

 

Do you have a stereo or an amp.. ?? that did it for me... ALSO ... how old is the battery ??? that is ONE sign that it may need replacing... where it's sort of good, but sort of bad at the same time.. open the top of the battery, CHECK THE WATER, it should be about 3/4 an inch lower than the top of the battery... if it's not... fill it with distilled water, start the car, let it run for a while,(or drive it) and then wait a few days.

 

Thanks guys for quick replies.

Brand new battery literally 2 weeks old. This was happening with the old battery but i just though it wasn't holding a charge.

Im sure the alt is good cause i jump it and it charges the battery right up plus i just put it in in september.

txhotRs-I do have an amp. But i shut off the deck so shouldnt' the remote wire shut off the amp? how could it be draining if it is? Plus explain it could be my problem.

si_camaro do i put the test light on the negative battery terminal and the negative battery wire?

 

Better not have your alternator charging it every time or you'll have to replace that, too.

Do what si_camaro said, you will find the drain. I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with your stereo.

 

Connect a test light like si_camaro said. Then start disconnecting aftermarket stuff like alarm and stereo stuff. If the light is still on, start pulling fuses until the test light goes out.

The rectifier converts the AC power that the alternator produces into DC power. It's mounted inside the alternator.
To see if it is draining the batt, disconnect the large single wire on the back of the alt. Be careful not to let this wire touch anything metal since it is hot all the time (unless the batt is disconnected).

 

zz28zz is right about the rectifier. You could always just take it to like the local autozone or something and have them check it. It could be alot of things. Do the test light and tell us what you come up w/ and we'll go from there. good luck

 

I will do it as soon as I can its raining right now. so maybe if it is nice tommorrow i can do it.

first ill recheck my stereo. then ill move on from there.

thanks guys.

 

Yes.

 

I hooked up the test light and disconnected my stereo and took out all the fuses and the test light is still on....


where do i go from here to find my drain?

I can't believe this..

please help.

Now it seems to be dying faster like 14 hours instead of 2 days.

 

MY CAR DOES THE SAME THING,I HATE ELECTRICAL GREMLINS

 

Mike>> Did ya disconnect the big wire on the alt? It goes to batt with no fuse.

Did ya try disconnecting the relays by the brake booster?
Like MAF, fuel pump, or maybe a cooling fan relay?

I'm betting that there's still something aftermarket connected.
Any wires that look out of place near the fuse block?

Prev owner may have wired an accessory to the wrong side of the fuse, so it goes straight to the batt instead of thru the fuse.

 

try tapping a few of the solenoids i had a problem with an 86 bird i would hear a hissing sound from the engine compartment and it was the fuel pump relay coming on while the car was not running. now its easier cause i have an inline gauge on the fuel rail so if theres pressure after the cars been sitting there it can be the relay...good luck let us know if you find a problem

 

Yea i disconnected the big wire from the alt to the battery and the light was still on. I also unhooked my alarm and it was still on.

what about correred bolts on the battery terminals?

could this be a problem?

Also my positive nut that goes into the battery is kinda worn i can get it snug but if i go for tight it kind twists off...so its still kinda loose.

This all started happing after my car was sitting for a few months.

What about my starter could this be anything?

some stuff is rigged up from prev owner but it all had been working for like 3 year since i had the car....what would make it start now.

my fan runs all the time when there is power.

im so lost...ugh.

 

Mike....
Correlate the instructions guys are giving you here.......

1. Disconnect the Neg batt cable....
2. test lite between neg terminal on batt and the neg batt cable
3. lite on=short....somewhere
4. PULL A FUSE...check light again
5. keep pulling fuses and checking your lite, if you pull a fuse ad the test lite goes away, you've found your cuplrit system/circuit.

This may not isolate every electrical systm on the car but it's a good start.

Like most guys here are indicating, check the obvious first, if batt is good, even new alternators have proven to be no good, get that sucker tested.

RB

 

I have done all the fuses, checked the alt. and my alarm and stereo.

What else to look at that has nothing to do with the fuse block besides realys that could drain the battery?

 

This may sound stupid but hear me out. 4 years ago I used to drive a Caddy (Fleetwood) and the battery kept dying over night. I checked the batt. alt. and found nothing, so I took it to a buddys shop and had them look at it. 3 days later he called and said the car was fixed. I picked up the car and found out that each door has its own ashtray and lighter, so my youngest son did me a favor by dropping a penny down inside the lighter which was grounding the battery out. I know that alot of people use there ashtray as a coin holder and just thought this could be a posability. Good luck

 

Yea i do use my ash try for coins, small screwdrivers and screws and fuses.

But how would this be grounding out the car?

Cig lighter is never used and it has the piece in there.

 

What he means is a coin (or screw, or similar) in the cigar lighter socket would act much the same as the cigar lighter being pushed in permanently, as it would keep the negative and positive of the lighter in permanent contact.

Take the cigar lighter out and have a look inside to see if anything metal has fallen in there.

 

disconnect your battery and connect a ohm meter between the two posts and see how much of a draw you have with the ignition off im not sure of what the spec for these cars should be but i would suspect its somewhere in the .5 ohm range.. maybe someone can correct me.. if the draw appears too high start looking for the sources.

 

No nothing is in the cig lighter.

Im leaning more toward the starter i guess.

the only other things it could be is

1. my fan runs all the time when the car is on.

that is all i can honestly think of.

I probably will not get it to it till sunday.

ill let you guys know what happens....

 

On the starter solenoid, there is a large stud with the large power wire coming from the batt connected to it. There's most likely at least one other wire connecting to the same stud. Remove all the wires from the large terminal. Using a bolt and nut, connect the wires back together. This will allow power to go everywhere, except the starter, and if the draw is still there, at least you can rule-out the starter/solenoid.

Be sure to disconnect the battery before swapping any wires around, especially starter wiring. Also be sure the bolt/nut assy doesn't touch any metal.

 

i REALLY hope you mean an AMMETER.....................

 

****Originally posted by 89RsPower!
disconnect your battery and connect a ohm meter between the two posts and see how much of a draw you have with the ignition off im not sure of what the spec for these cars should be but i would suspect its somewhere in the .5 ohm range.. maybe someone can correct me.. if the draw appears too high start looking for the sources.*****



Don't connect an amp-meter or an ohm-meter to the batt posts.
You'll have an instantly fried meter!

If you going to use an amp-meter, connect it between a batt post and the cable that normally goes to the post.

An ohm-meter can be connected from the neg batt post to the car body. There's where you want to see 0.5 ohms or less. I would use the voltage setting first with meter hooked-up like this to verify no voltage, them switch to ohms.

An amp-meter would be nice but, the test light technique should work fine for what your trying to do.

 

My 89 Iroc did this about a year ago. As it turned, out the problem was that the rear hatch pull down motor wasn't pulling the hatch all the way down and therefore the motor never shut off and kept pulling current constantly. I pulled the fuse for the hatch motor and re-adjusted the latch mechanism to work manually, and the problem was solved.

 

Sounds like a bad radio ground. G/f's car did the SAME thing, until I corrected the ground.

Alternator could be the problem also.. take it to Autozone and have them test it, also make sure you put distilled water inside the battery if the acid looks a bit low. Have them test the battery also.

If both of them pass, check your stereo connections.

 

89rocs:
I have an aftermaket deck. but where to I look for the part that is grounded to the car?

I have subs and everything but i pulled the fuse to that and the drain was still there.

the battey is like brand new.

is there anyway to check the alt yourself?

89Z:

did your hatch my nosie when it was trying to pull down?

Mine is locked right now so i don't think its moving.

 

Most aftermarket ground wires are black coated, and may have a holed end for attaching to a possible bolt. If the prev. owner didn't cut off the wiring harness, then you should have 3 connectors from the original wiring harness, hooked up to a harness that matches the plug on your stereo, then a black ground wire. Make sure your ground wire is secured, if it's loose or crossed with another, you would either drain your battery, or blow your head unit.

Did you hook any wires to the ignition switch?

 

heres a question for you that could answer your question, does you hatch pull down like it's supposed to?,

I had the very same problem when I bought my TA, turned out that the hatch had been slammed once and broke the pulldown motor and it just sat there and ran and ran and ran, it took about a day or so to drain the battery enough to not start the car. this has power on it all the time even if the key is off. just open up the back plastic panel in the hatch and you will see the pulldown there is a black relay hanging there, unplug that and then check things with the test light trick.

 

good one, my G/F had a hatch problem also, it was slammed and broke the latch itself and it kept trying to "close" until it burnt itself out.

 

No, the hatch motor did not make any noise as it was stalled, trying to pull the hatch closed.

 

I believe you should hear a "click" when the hatch is done pulling down.

 

Ok so i check everything.

But I think I found the problem....

The alternator i think is the problem

Tell what you guys think.

I Unplugged the negative cable. did all the fuses as metioned before.

So i tested the back wire on the alt. The test light lit up. I also tested the part on the side with the 2 prongs it lit up to.

So is the alt suppose to light up with no cable and the car off?

 

can anyone tell me if it sounds like my alt.

I down to either starter or the alt.


also now the bolt on the back of the alternator where the cable goes to from the battery is turning when im trying to take the bolt off.

Does this affect the alt? how can i get it off now it just keeps turning.

 

not sure atm on how to get that cable off since I'm so freaking tired, but take your alternator to Autozone and have it tested, it's free.