I've had a weird thing happening on my '96 Accord for several weeks - the power door locks click intermittently at times after locking the doors. I'll walk away from it and hear it occasionally clicking, and I wonder if it's a relay or something that needs replacing.

Now I find that my battery is draining, but I went to AutoZone a while ago to have them check it out. Hooking up the battery checker showed that my battery is charging when the alternator is running, though.

The guy there said it's possible that there's a bad diode in the alternator, but there's no way to check that without taking it off the car.

Any insight? I haven't heard the clicking on the door locks in a while, so that might not be the only culprit, but I have been turning off the fan and the radio lately to make sure there isn't too much pull when I try to crank it (because it has been hesitant to crank lately).

Thanks for any help you can give me!

Barry

 

Does the battery drain only when the car is running or does it drain when the car is not running and then recharge when the car is running?

Did they test if there is a draw on the battery when the car is off? If that's the issue you can isolate it and figure out what it is - if it's the power locks or something else.

 

Seems it is only draining when the car is not running - he felt that the alternator works great and is charging when it's running.

Looks like I'll need to take it to a mechanic to see what's going on while it's off. I wonder, though, if there is a fix of some kind to stop the door locks from clicking. I could care less if the power locks work, too - I'd just as soon disable the power locks.

Is that possible? To where I could just manually lock and unlock the doors? I do that with the passenger back door already - I tried replacing the unit when it failed a couple of years ago, but it's in such a remote spot that it wasn't worth it. I just pulled the wiring out of the unit and tucked it back into the door.

 

Bump for any possible ideas... I took the Basslink amp out of the trunk yesterday, but it's still draining.

 

I fixed my power locks last week, its very easy to do. Google 94-97 accord power locks fix. Basically you take out the control device inside the driver door and check for worn solder points on the computer board. All I did was remelt the solder points with a solder gun and they work great ever since. If that doesnt work, leave the unit disconnected and see if your battery still drains.

 

Was yours doing the same thing mine was doing? Clicking on and off?

 

Just inop. Worth a shot anyway though.