Ok so my car has drained 3 batterys. Its not the alternator, its a little low but it still puts out 13 volts. there is one thing I was thinking though. My cars fuel system is on a switch, the power to the switch is connected straight to the possitive battery terminal. Would that drain it even if the switch is off? Also even if that is not the problem... should the fuel system be powered like that?

 

get a multimeter and do a parasitic drain test to check for abnormal drain. Then start doing voltage drop tests. If the alternator checked out good, i would start with all of the fuses. Every circuit on the car has a fuse.

Somewhere in the electrical system is drawing more current then it needs. You will be able to figure that out from checking the fuses and doing voltage drop tests (which will also tell you if something has excessive/less resistance than normal)

 

Bjorn's got it. BTW, I would probably replace that alternator if it is only putting out 13 volts. 14 minimum for a good alternator.

 

An electrical engineer told me once that an alternater with a bad diode would drain a battery because it draws current from battery when no good. Due what Bjorn20 says, that will pinpoint the circuit giving you trouble and them you can trouble shoot it. Also once I had a glove box light that was not shutting off when glove box was closed. That killed battery every time.

Good Luck

 

i'm havin the same problem. tell me how it turns out.

 

if u got a small short somewhere, good luck finding it.

been there done that. i finally paid a real mechanic to find it.

 

if you find parasitic drain at the batt., go to the fuse box(es), pull each fuse and check for drain accross the fuse socket. Super quick to find the faulty circuit.

 

How much is a multimeter. I've never used one I don't really know how to use one. How much do you think it would cost if I paid someone to do it?

 

Check your fuse under the hood. Forgot what it was but same thing happened to my friend. It was a 9A fuse I believe and was directly correlated with the battery/alternator/power source.

 

Wow that would be awesome if its just a fuse. Is it one of those bigger ones?>

 

Yup.

 

I had the same problem bought an EF with a SOHC ZC, battery would die, had to jump start it every time. After the B16 swap it started fine for 2 days then suddenly would not start, had to jump start again.

I noticed that the fuel gauge doesn't drop to E when the car is turned off though... is this unusual or possible source of power drain?

I'm just going to drop it off and have it looked at one of these days.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by thenick &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Check your fuse under the hood. Forgot what it was but same thing happened to my friend. It was a 9A fuse I believe and was directly correlated with the battery/alternator/power source.</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

you can get a cheap multimeter &lt;$5 (radioshack, biglots, etc.)
electrical diagnostic time ~1hr flat rate * ~$90/hr. depending on the shop