does anyone know how to test your car to see if there is an electrical load draining your battery?

my car's battery will go dead if i don't drive it for 5 days or so, so it seems that something is draining it dead. is there a way to test this that anyone knows of?

thanks.

 

hook up a volt meter to your battery with everything off - should be reading about 12.5v - if battery is good, it should stay there, but may drop a little if you have clock or radio that keeps memory - if it is slowly dropping in voltage, start pulling fuses one at a time to try to isolate the circuit, then you have to track it down.

how old is your battery? could be it just won't hold a charge.


[Modified by jlicrx, 10:04 AM 11/11/2002]

 

an ohm meter is the best way to go
unhook your neg. cable and connect the two terminals to complete the circuit
anything higher than 2 ohms is bad i believe

 

the battery is new...i got it in april.

thanks for the replies guys. i will use both methods to see what i can find.

 

to test for a draw on the bat. turn your ohm meter to m.a. setting
Hook up an ohm meter neg side to your (disconnected) neg terminal on the bat. and positive side to your neg bat cable. Shut everything off and close your doors.
Basically make sure all consumers are not on. Read the reading....shoudnt be hight thatn around 30ma or so

 

all you need to do is disconnect the negative terminal. hook up an amp meter in series ( this means use both wires from the meter to complete the circuit) the reading on the meter should be .1A or less. A resistance test and/or voltage test will do <U>nothing</U> to tell you if you have a parasitic drain on your battery. voltage test will tell you how much power the battery has

 

If you don't have an amp meter I have always used a volt meter in series on the ground lead or a test light. If you have a drain somewhere it will read well over 1 volt or your test light will be on. Just start pulling fuses till the voltage drops and you should have found your problem.

 

good info here!

thanks guys. i'll give this all a try one night this week.

 

be careful if your using a multi meter in series to check for a draw. it is very easy to blow the fuse in the meter if you open the door and the interior light comes on or you step on the brake and activate the brake lights.

 

 

haha this is 3 years old

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by vtecn8ive &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">haha this is 3 years old </TD></TR></TABLE>haha yeah it is. i use a regular test light and disconnect the neg cable on the battery. a faint glow is normal for ecu, clock, radio, alarm, draws. but a bright light means start pulling fuses till the light goes out you have an appreciable draw.

 

I was going to say, Keith you are sure asking a weird question. Then I see its 2002

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by NastyHabitzCRX &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">haha yeah it is. i use a regular test light and disconnect the neg cable on the battery. a faint glow is normal for ecu, clock, radio, alarm, draws. but a bright light means start pulling fuses till the light goes out you have an appreciable draw. </TD></TR></TABLE>

just curious why you quoted me when I had no type of technical comment?

This is good information should be stickied in Faqs could prove to be useful

 

posted my experience here:

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=71856

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by vtecn8ive &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

This is good information should be stickied in Faqs could prove to be useful</TD></TR></TABLE>thats why I bumped it

 

bump