Battery - 92 Seville

[Bill A]

My 92 Seville battery won't hold a charge. I think something may be pulling juice when the car sits idle.

I took the battery out and had it recharged and checked at parts store. All tests indicate it is OK - Only 2 years old. Back in the car and next day dead again.

I recharged again and put back in car, plenty of juice to start car. I even pulled fuse for interior dome lights so there was no chance one or all being on.( My neighbor had told he had seen interior lights on a few days ago before I found battery dead for the first time.) When I checked the switch for dome lights it was not turned on.

2 days went by and again battery real low, not completely dead.

I have now re-charged battery and have put in car but not connected. My plan at moment is to see of battery discharges without being connected, which would indicate the battery is the problem. The car sits outside 24/7.

Assuming battery is OK, does anybody have any ideas on what may drawing power or how to determine what may be drawing power when car sits idle.

Thanks

[Scotty]

My 92 Seville battery won't hold a charge. I think something may be pulling juice when the car sits idle.

I took the battery out and had it recharged and checked at parts store. All tests indicate it is OK - Only 2 years old. Back in the car and next day dead again.

I recharged again and put back in car, plenty of juice to start car. I even pulled fuse for interior dome lights so there was no chance one or all being on.( My neighbor had told he had seen interior lights on a few days ago before I found battery dead for the first time.) When I checked the switch for dome lights it was not turned on.

2 days went by and again battery real low, not completely dead.

I have now re-charged battery and have put in car but not connected. My plan at moment is to see of battery discharges without being connected, which would indicate the battery is the problem. The car sits outside 24/7.

Assuming battery is OK, does anybody have any ideas on what may drawing power or how to determine what may be drawing power when car sits idle.

Thanks

Look in the glove compartment and the trunk to see if the light stays on.

[adallak]

Here is a post posted by KIMO. You might want to follow the procedure described.

Like cadillacjeff says, it sounds like a parasitic battery drain. It is normal that there is some sort of drain, for the clock, memory in the radio, voltage regulator ecm memory ect; but it should be minimal...the fsm for my 1988 deville 4.5l says 50 milliamps is normal. It is not enough to discharge your battery in one day.

If you have a digital multimeter you can verify the current drain and determine if it is within range. My fsm says to set your mutimeter at 2000 milliamp range and connect the it in series (disconnect neg(-) batt terminal, connect neg(-) probe from mutimeter to neg(-) batt terminal and pos(+) probe to the end of the negative battery cable). If you have electronic level control (ELC), you must wait 6 minutes because it continues to draw 400 milliamps after the ignition is turned off. Make sure it securely connected (with alligator clips for example) because the elc will reset for another 6 minutes if the cicuot is broken. Also very important, when making current drain tests, make sure you disconnect the fuse to the interior lighting and disconnect the hood light...it will show current drain which could cause a faulty diagnosis if your door or hood is opened.

If you have more than 50 milliamps (maybe more with your eldo but it should be around there) you probably have a parasitic current drain.

To locate it, with your multimeter still connected, start disconnecting fuses till the exessive drain disappears. If you take out the fuel pump fuse (for example) and the exessive drain is gone the problem is in that circuit. Make sure the you took out the interior lighting fuse and disconnected the hood lamp. The multimeter might blow a fuse if it cannot handle the current drawn from the interior lights turning on when the door is opened ect...To check the hood light the hood must be closed. Yoy can just disconnect everything and look from under the car if it stays on when the hood is closed or by depessing the the switch the same with the trunk light.

If no drain can be found, the problem is elsewhere...faulty battery or charging system.

If this does not help, I am sorry for the long post...please correct me if anybody sees anything wrong with this.

[Dloch]

When making these checks also make sure you disconnect the wire from the alternator. I had a bad alternator drain a battery.

[Bill A]

Already checked the glove box and trunk lights. Hood light disconnected too.

Will try some of the tests once I get my hands on a multimeter, assuming the battery does not discharge itself over next 24-36 hours.

Adallak - thanks for the previous post on the test procedure.

After I started it earlier today and it was charging at 14.6 volts, seems a little higher than normal.

[Ed Hall]

The battery might have an internal short and be due to replacement. If the battery looses charge when the cables are disconnected, then it is bad.

[johnnydone]

i had the same problem with my allante it needed the right door alarm reset put your key in the right door lock it then unlock see if that helps just a thought

[rek]

.( My neighbor had told he had seen interior lights on a few days ago before I found battery dead for the first time.) If you have door-jam mounted switches that control the interior lights, it might be one of the switches. My 92 Riviera had a discharge problem that was caused by a dirty (read shorted on) driver's side, jam switch. I removed it, took it apart, cleaned it, tested it with a DVM. The CLEANED switch worked as intended.