6G Celicas Forums

Hello All,

I have a problem, when my car is turned off my battery drains it will start if it only sits for a couple hours but it is noticable that the battery is not fully charged. If the car sits over night however it needs to be jump started. I've already checked all the basics and have also disconnected the battery overnight to see if the battery just wasn't retaining a charge. It started fine the next morning;So the battery holds a charge. I thought I had the issue narrowed down to the stereo/cig lighter because when I removed the corresponding fuse then let the car sit overnight the car started fine the next morning but since then it has not started when removing the fuse and having the car sit overnight. So do you guys have any tips on how to figure out where current is being drewn from? Any help would be greatly appriciated.

check to see if your amp is staying on.

even though the radio is off it'll still draw power.

I have a 100 amp switch that I have turned off to ensure the amp is not taking any power.

Disconnect the negative battery terminal and put a multimeter inbetween the ground cable and the ngative terminal. Take an amp reading. It should be next to nothing. Seeing how it drains the battery it will probably be a couple of amps draw showing. Like you did before remove fuses one by one to pinpoint the source and go from there.

DON'T TRY TO START THE CAR WITH THE MULTIMETER STILL CONNECTED INLINE WITH THE GROUND CABLE THE CURRENT DRAW WILL FRY IT.

I'm having trouble following the instructions on how you want me to put a multimeter btwn the ground and negative post do you think you could explain that to me please?

Disconnect the ground cable. Setup the meter to read amps/current usually a big A on the selector. Connect one of the meter leads to the ground cable and the other to the battery negative terminal. Basically you are reconnecting the ground but it's throught the meter allowing you to read current draw.

well after a few hours of work I found the problem Kinda.The cigarette lighter pulls 0.5 volts when the car is off regarless wether the fuse for the cig/rad is in or not. The only catch is the when the plug to the clock is unplugged it no longer pulls a charge.Weird huh. Well so I though that if I left the clock unplugged then ther would be no problem However when I let my car sit over night it wouldn't start again. Any suggestions? Any help would be appriciated.THX

Johnny

The clock will pull a small amount. It needs to keep the time. If you only show about .5 draw that's pretty normal. The clock and computer need power for the memory. I know you disconnected the battery overnight and it started fine but take your car to an autozone or pepboys and have them load check the battery and the charging system it should be free. It may appear to be fine but the battery may have a dead cell.

Also when you say the car is dead in the morning do you mean that it won't start or that there are no lights or anything.

This post has been edited by AudioFreak: Jul 23, 2003 - 1:23 AM