My current driver is a pre-2010 vehicle. I really don't want to buy any of these newer cars. Maybe I can import one from Cuba.
I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days
111–120 of 515 posts
Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
>there's three gazillions of wires My old math teacher would deduct points for not listing the units.
My former English teacher would question why the age of your math teacher is relevant in this post.
why are you being ageist? I have a new math teacher, therefore my previous teacher is my old math teacher.
Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's fairly straightforward if the car is unmodified, as everything should be fused. Multi-meter between positive terminal and positive lead and pulling each fuse to see when the drop goes away will isolate the circuit. Then you've narrowed it down pretty far and can go from there. The horrible thing is if the car is modified, and you discover an un-fused circuit.
> Ammeter across the battery terminals and pulling each fuse to see when the drop goes away How does this compare with the way presented in the article based on measuring resistive voltage drop across each fuse in turn?
Same idea really, just that you have to bother disconnecting something and try one by one vs just measuring it fuse by fuse.
Other method is getting DC clamp meter with low range (say 2A). Then just clamp in on wires. Bit fiddly as they work on magnetic field so they need to be reset before measure (And can work as compass in a pinch...)
Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days
#114Well this is entertaining. Our 2012 Mazda CX-7 seems to die if we don't drive it for a week. I've sort of ignored this problem but now I'm going to go check some fuses and see if this is the same problem.
Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Measuring voltage drop would work but only for fairly high loads. Yah, that doesn't really make sense for small parasitic loads. > Ammeter is not safe as general advice as a typical one won’t be anywhere near large enough capacity for working with a car battery It should be fine with the car not "on", but the general level of danger of doing anything near a car battery requires caution.
> Yah, that doesn't really make sense for small parasitic loads. If your multimeter has a sub-mV range -- which a decent meter should -- you can measure a voltage drop across the battery ground lead. I've successfully done that to diagnose a battery draw in my car.
Exactly, you are measuring a change, so its the precision of the meter not the absolute V. Maybe easier to measure on a nearly dead battery?
Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you like watching amateur YouTubers rip out their hair chasing electrical problems, I recommend checking out Tavarish and Samcrac. It turns out cheap flooded auction cars have tons of those
Pine Hollow Auto Diagnostics South Main Auto Watch Wes Work musty1
+1 for SMA. The man clearly takes you through the troubleshooting process and his train of though.
Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should see if there are carshare options around you. Even if you’re spending $50/weekend (which is a fair amount of driving — Communauto is as low as $3/hr), that’s still quite a bit cheaper than owning a depreciating asset with lifetime maintenance costs (not to even mention insurance and fuel).
"You will own nothing and you will be happy"
This must be the new astroturfing attack against concepts like public transportation. I've seen this phrase pop up too frequently at this point for it to be organic.
Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days
#118Well this is timely. I have a parasitic draw on my NC Miata. The first mechanic just replaced the battery. The second told me it's normal for the battery to die if you don't drive it for 3 days (because "cars have computers now"). It seems like mechanics really don't like digging into the electrical part of the car... but these days that encompasses more and more of what can go wrong. Without time to dig into it myse…
My last car, a 2007 Acura TSX, had the same problem--it wouldn't start after 4 or 5 days (maybe 2 or 3 during the winter). This model was from the first wave of touchscreens and bluetooth. Mechanics shrugged, pointed to the tiny, underpowered battery, and told me to drive it more. Thankfully there are a lot of car enthusiast forums out there that have been plugging away on vBulletin for years. Someone on an Acura for…
Same problem and same fix for my 2009 Acura MDX.
Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's fairly straightforward if the car is unmodified, as everything should be fused. Multi-meter between positive terminal and positive lead and pulling each fuse to see when the drop goes away will isolate the circuit. Then you've narrowed it down pretty far and can go from there. The horrible thing is if the car is modified, and you discover an un-fused circuit.
I’ve had unknown draws before and many times they’re not constant draws. A constant draw is easy and quick to find. A draw that only happens when some module or other wakes up is a lot harder to find.
Yes. I had a Dodge Charger where the parasitic draw wouldn't really become problematic until 3 days after you re-attached the battery. At which point it would be so bad it would discharge from full to empty overnight. It could even out-draw a trickle charger.
I took it to several mechanics who couldn't find anything - because they'd unplug the battery to add a meter into the circuit. They weren't willing to wait 3 days afterwards to come back to it.
I ended up disconnecting the battery overnight. Worked fine then. Traded it in; I feel a bit bad for the next buyer.
Re: I fixed a parasitic drain on my car in 408 days
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's normal for the battery to die if you don't drive it for 3 days I've heard this nonsense a couple times now. I was incredulous at first but everyone seems to say this. What are anyone's suggestions for a weekend-only car? (I bike to work so I don't need a car on weekdays.) Trickle charge the car battery on weekdays?
Yeah, if a mechanic told me having the battery die in 3 days was normal, I'd stop going to that mechanic.
I did that for the exact same problem on the same model car earlier this year, but gave up after trying a few places that all said the same thing (including the dealer). Glad to see this post though… now I know I’m not the crazy one.