johnfin

Still cant figure out my battery drain. After 2 weeks, battery is flat. Used my fluke inductive ammeter and the drain is not bad. Cd player and hood light removed. After i charged the battery, connected leads up and horn honked and it armed, why?

Rob 02

I had an issue where one of my seat motors would run intermittently on its own. It was a switch and it would drain my battery. Listen for noises in the seats or mirrors.

johnfin

Can i leave the hood open and car armed while testing drain. I cant do this on my gto, the alarm will go off after a few hours.

johnfin

Reason for question is that i will take sample tests throughout the weekend. I pulled bulb months ago.

johnfin

My meter is inductive, hence no disconnect.

cobra3

You may to disconnect things one at a time while doing a draw test until you find your voltage drop.

Fast one

How old is the battery?

johnfin

The battery is not the problem. Is new and decent. I measured the inductive drain with my clamp fluke, was around .07 amps or 70 ma. with car off. Didnt really believe that for I pit the meter in series (meter has leeds too) around the same. Meter if good for 20 amps but for some reason I could not arm it with meter in series. Is series it was around the same. Found an actron meter in the garage (car multi meter). I was able to barely arm the car, horns buzzed. Jumped to about 6 amps them back down to 80ma after time. I put a shut bar in series with the battery and didnt see a major drain but that meter is calibrated to the shunt and its only an ammeter. I was thinking of disabling the seat adjuster and light on after disarm but I think the seat are already off and the car drains when the alarm is on. No sense pulling fuses if there is no drain.

johnfin

Shunt bar

johnfin

70 milliamps doesnt seem like much. I have other cars that sit for months with that draw and they crank up. Remember the battery is 600-700 amps. 500ma is 1/2 amp. After 2 weeks the battery is flat as a pancake. Be interesting to see what the car does after 2 weeks unlocked.

Fast one

Isn't a continuous 70 ma load for two weeks the same as 1 amp for 24 hours? Depending on how good the battery is with the normal 24 ma load, a C5 can sit between 2-4 weeks before it won't start. If you reduce the load down to 24 ma your car should not go dead in at least three weeks but that will shorten the battery life compared to leaving a trickle charger on. The 600 cold cranking amp rating sounds impressive but it's for 30 seconds.

Ron C!

My issue was the glove box light not turning off. Disconnected it, the car can sit for 2-3 weeks and fire right up.

johnfin

I didnt even know it had a glovebox light. So afyer one week armed the battery dropped .1 volt. Thats nothing. At that rate it could sit for 10 weeks. My 02 transam can sit for 6 mo and start. Its an intermitant problem. Can i turn off the lighting features, exterior and interior?

johnfin

I was reading in the manual and it says the car has a feature to prevent the battery from going dead, ie a light left on. Some of you have said a light was the problem, so does the feature not work?

Paul 75 L82

The solution is to buy a CTEK charger. I leave mine on all of the time. Always ready to go. I got tired of resetting my stereo.