help with electrical issues (battery draining, battery light on, etc) Options

[brianforster]

ok so i currently have no freaking clue whats wrong with my electrical system.

after the swap , the first time i tried to "daily drive" The car, the car would die after about 3 days of sitting, i figured it was the ****ty walmart battery so my friend lent me a battery and that worked great for like 3 weeks.

fast forward to winter (during the fall i pretty much let the car sit, id drive it prolly once every 2 weeks) i thought all of my electrical problems were over because with this new battery my friend gave me , the car would start fine even after sitting for like 2 weeks.

now winter and my car did not get along, when i went to drive home for thanksgiving, it was freezing out, and i had to jumpstart the car, i noticed that when i was stopped at a light, the battery light would come on, i have learned that this means there is a problem with the charging system (or so i thought?? someone care to clarify this)

so i revved the car up and the light turned off, i made the 2 hour trip home safely because the car never really idled again, woke up the next morning and it was dead (Battery didnt hold charge because it definitly should have charged after a 2 hour ride home)

so , i say SCREW THIS, i drop 150 bucks on an optima red top, i decide i dont wanna have any more battery troubles.. WRONG.

take the car home and i put it in, the car wont crank at full speed? (Wtf?) eventually it seems to go from slow cranking to normal cranking and stay at a normal cranking speed.. but the car will not start.

so, i figure its the alternator, replace that, doesnt fix it.. so i have both the battery and the alternator tested, both are fine.. so it must be a short, right?

well i find that my MAIN battery cable, going to the starter, is frayed and ripped, so i soldered it all up, and electrical taped it real nice.. got the battery fully charged, assembled it all, and it started right up the next morning for me to go back to school.

2 hour drive back to school, park car, due to finals and stuff i dont end up driving the car for 3 weeks.

go to start the car and it needs a jump start, after talking to a few people, most say it is probably normal for a battery to need a jump (it wasnt completely dead, just cranking slowly) after 3 weeks, so i write it off, drive home for a christmas party, drive back, park car, this was saturday.

fast forward to today, thursday, i go to drive the car again (so its been like 5 days, and the battery should theoretically be fully charged since i drove it 2 hours straight) and it needs a jump, well i jump it and all is well.. except when it started to get darker and i turned my lights on, the battery light came on! turned lights off, battery light goes off!

so i drive around for a bit trying to get the battery charged, but after about 20 minutes of driving, i got to the point where the battery light wouldnt come on when i turn the lights on, but would when i turn the highbeams on.

is this just my battery very slowly being charged up by the alternator? i dont udnerstand why the battery light comes on when i use an accessory, if someone could please explain to me how the battery light works perhaps this could enlighten me to my problem.

so now i have two theories, one, when i went to get my battery charged at autozone they charged it but the machine kept reading not charged, so they charged it like 3 times, when they gave my battery back there was acid all over it and it was really really hot, so maybe they overcharged it and damaged it.

second, i have another short somewhere, this battery light problem is weird, maybe the alternator isnt big enough to keep charging this heavy duty red top?

i need your input guys, i think i will probably end up taking it to like a mr tire and having them do a whole electrical system test.

thanks
-brian

[K-ESD]

The reason you might be getting 0.03 is because the system is reset. I forgot to mention this. You may want to try the test again to see if it will go in some sort of "sleep mode". Door locks ECU, engine ECU, clock, radio, headlight ECU and some other devices all draw a small amount of current for memory and/or for functioning. The ones that are functioning have a timer on them to turn off after a certain amount of time.


The next step is critical, read carefully or you will not get the results you want.

Make sure NOTHING is on or else you will burn the wire.
Do this after leaving the car sitting for 45mins to an hour. (to make sure all the timers are up)

If during any of the step you break the contact between the battery and the clamp (ie no more path from clamp to terminal) you will have to start over again leaving the car for 45m-1hr.

Loosen the clamp bolt but don't break the contact.

Take a piece of wire (16g to 12g), with the clamp still on the terminal, tie the wire to the terminal of the battery and tie the other end to the clamp. Make sure it's secure/long enough not to slip off when you take off the clamp.

Carefully take off the clamp (the wire should make contact between the clamp and the terminal).

Take your meter and attach it to the battery terminal and the clamp (like you've done before to test for draw).

Carefully remove the wire and note the draw.

*for extra safety, you should use a fuse holder w/ 10A fuse instead of a wire. but a wire should work fine, you just have to watch yourself.

also, could you test the battery voltage while running cold and reving 2-3k
you should see 14.x Volts, that means it's charging alright.