I have a 98 Civic that is driven infrequently. The battery drains over 4-6 weeks. When I do a parasitic test, the multimeter initially shows a very high drain when I first connect it (the meter changes quickly, but I certainly see .5 or .6 amps on the scale) before it drops to .02 amps. On the 200 mA scale it always blows the .5 A fuse in my meter. This occurs whether it is the first time I connect it or the 5th. Any ideas? I could simply disconnect the battery when I leave it, since the drain only seems to be a problem when it is used infrequently, but I would prefer to hunt down and fix the problem.

 

any aftermarket things installed? alarm,sound system, leds? its blowing your fuse is cause the amperage readings exceed the fuse rating. so it's read 20 milli-amps once its settled?
cause thats not awful, but will drain in 4/6 wekks if not used.

 

The only aftermarket stuff is a Kenwood sound system

I agree that the 20mA is not necessarily a bad number, but i just don't trust it. I would feel better if I could confirm the reading on the 200mA scale, but that scale is fused, and when I connect my meter always blows the meter's .5 A fuse which makes me suspicious of the readings I get on the 10 A scale. I think that a 20 mA parasitic draw should only drain the battery about 14 Ahr in 30 days and although the battery is not huge, I think that is not a large fraction of a size 51 reserve capacity. It could be my calcs are wrong. At any rate, I am looking for reasons that the initial draw during the test could be so high.