Battery dead....AGAIN!!!!!!

[heart_of_dixie]

Well the "mechanics" could find nothing wrong. They even kept it over the weekend, and it cranked today for them. I was told the milliamps should be less than 25 when the car is off.....they claim mine registered 18. Has NO ONE else out there had this problem? Or do I just have cruiser gremlins?

[dreamwerxx]

Originally posted by heart_of_dixie
Well the "mechanics" could find nothing wrong. They even kept it over the weekend, and it cranked today for them. I was told the milliamps should be less than 25 when the car is off.....they claim mine registered 18. Has NO ONE else out there had this problem? Or do I just have cruiser gremlins?

The closest I can come is my brand new 1972 Duster shut down on the Don Valley Parkway on way to work. It flatly refused to start. I walked home, peed right off, picked up my other car, and drove to work. Just left Duster on the shoulder.
In the morning, I stopped, tried the Duster, and it fired up. Took me an hour to get the 2 cars home by leapfrogging them.
Drove the Duster (or some modified version of it) for 21 more years with never a problem.

Pray for a temp glitch that goes away, maybe that was the last time.

[PT_Sean]

How long does it take for the battery to DRAIN flat??

Did they do a LOAD TEST on the battery??




Mine will die in a week with NO use, hence the trickle charger.

[dreamwerxx]

Originally posted by PT_Sean
Mine will die in a week with NO use, hence the trickle charger.

Why, What is drawing so much current as to flatten battery.
Mine never sits more than a few days, but in the past, I could leave cars for days, weeks, etc and never have a problem.

[PT_Sean]

Originally posted by dreamwerxx


Why, What is drawing so much current as to flatten battery.
Mine never sits more than a few days, but in the past, I could leave cars for days, weeks, etc and never have a problem.

Nothing special. As a battery ages, it will loose 20%/year in storage capactiy. Mine draws 20mA with the IOD in, 2 mA with the IOD out. I once had a truck, with a NEW Sears Die Hard. Left the lights on ALL DAY (8:00 till 4:00) and it still started that evening!!

It would NOT do that after 8 months though.

With any automotive battery, you also degrade the battery by leaving it stored FLAT which happened the first winter I had the PT. My van was stored flat all winter, I had probs after 2 days!! It was replaced under warranty last week.

[dreamwerxx]

Strange. At one point in my Dusters career, I got 8 years out of one battery.
And I don't ever recall not getting at least 5 years.
I never charge or trickle charge them, just drive. But if and when I do lose a battery, I don't even bother to try recovery. Kiss it goodbye, and replace it.

[Bosch]

Ok stupid question.

Could the IOD fuse be bad and drawing off way to much current? Since you should pull it out to store the PT, could it just be letting to much juice draw through it?


Just throwing something out to get the great minds here turning...

[PT_Sean]

Originally posted by Bosch
Ok stupid question.

Could the IOD fuse be bad and drawing off way to much current? Since you should pull it out to store the PT, could it just be letting to much juice draw through it?


Just throwing something out to get the great minds here turning...

Fair question. The IOD fuse, like any fuse, is a limiting device to protect the battery from over-current draws. If the fuse is rated at 20 Amps, a 21 amp draw will blow the fuse. The fuse itself will not limit current below the fused value, only blow if it exceeds the rating.

[JOEM]

Originally posted by dreamwerxx


The closest I can come is my brand new 1972 Duster shut down on the Don Valley Parkway on way to work. It flatly refused to start. I walked home, peed right off, picked up my other car, and drove to work. Just left Duster on the shoulder.
In the morning, I stopped, tried the Duster, and it fired up. Took me an hour to get the 2 cars home by leapfrogging them.
Drove the Duster (or some modified version of it) for 21 more years with never a problem.

Pray for a temp glitch that goes away, maybe that was the last time.

Of course, a big electrical problem with the older Mopars was the ballast resistor. I always carried a couple spare ones in the glovebox when I owned my '66 Sports Fury, '70 Challenger, etc.

Yeah, I've had cars with intermittent electrical problems. My old Dodge Daytona Shelby Z's hidden headlights would fail, I'd manually crank them up once or twice and then they would work fine for a long, long time and then fail again, and I would repeat the process and they would work fine once again. This went on for well over a decade. Go figure.

[MX-5]

OK. Time to chime in here.


There have been reports (right here on the forums) over the last few years about parasitic battery drains.
In almost all cases, it was finally linked to a relay sticking in the 'on' position.

The 2 most likely culprits are the heated seat relay, in the fuse panel below the steering wheel.
The ASD relay, in the underhood power distribution center.

Both will stick intermittently. They will continue to draw current until the battery gets low enough to release the contacts.
This make diagnosis nearly impossible.

My suggestion:
Pull the heated seat relay. You won't need it for 4 months anyway.
Swap the ASD relay with the horn relay.
If the horn goes off for no reason, you discovered the defective relay!

Both of these tests are free and simple.

The relays are shown on a map on the underside of the fuse box covers.