maverik259

so I had my battery die last weekend after letting the car sit all weekend (never had a problem with it before). Jumped it and ran fine till yesterday morning when i woke up to go to work and it was dead again (not completely just not enough to start).

Had it and alternator tested, battery came out next to perfect. Pulled 758 cca out of the rated 760cca, 14.4v unloaded, and 14.07v loaded.

So i began to wonder if i was getting a draw on it. I got about a month ago a intermittent random "right mirror turn signal out" warning but it's not out and the warning doesn't always appear.

I did a draw test on the battery and I came up negative (unhooked the negative terminal, and put my negative prong on the battery terminal and the positive prong on the positive terminal and put the darn thing in mA and still nothing. however this was also during one of the instances where the turn signal out lamp warning was not triggered.

However just 20 minutes ago after getting home from work, I noticed after rummiging in my garage that my center data LCD thing on the dash was still lit up saying that turn signal was out and i have been out of the car about 20 minutes now...

so I am assuming this is my draw, any thoughts as to why this is staying on or how to fix this?

maverik259

i just rechecked my turn signal and it appears all the forward pointing LEDs are not lighting up now, but the 2 side pointing LEDs that light up the 2 clear tubes that run horizontally across the lighted area are still working.

Regardless, i still don't see why this is causing my LCD to stay lit saying bulb out!

Gramma_Benz

You check the seat module?

maverik259

i read alot about that and its not my seat module...

I hooked up my multimeter and put it on the current setting and my craftsman keeps reading 1___._ when on the 10A setting. According to the manual a "1" means out of range reading...so is this thing trying to say that there is greater than a 10A draw on my battery? lol no but seriously, lol there is just no way

Gramma_Benz

Maybe start popping fuses to all accessories one at a time and see if the drain goes down?

maverik259

ya im gonna have to

GTibunny8v

If you have a draw more than 10A you can blow the fuse in the meter. Check that before going crazy. I leave the hood, trunk and drivers door open. Close the hood and trunk latches and door switch then connect the multimeter. That way you can access the fuse panel and front and rear SAMs. The car should have 50mA or less draw when the car goes to sleep (Ive seen cars take up to 30 min to go to sleep). So use the mA scale on the meter and not the A. If you have 180ish mA on the meter that means the CAN is staying awake. I would start with the fuse block on the drivers side of the dash and remove fuses for seat control modules and overhead control panel. 95% of the time that is the problem. Let me know what you get for a reading. Ill be able to help further if needed.

maverik259

ok so leave all the doors hood and trunk open, disconnect the battery and wait 30 min for the computer to go to sleep?

maverik259

and what do you mean door switch?

Gramma_Benz

I think he means, open them all, them close whatever switches that correspond to the hood, trunk and doors so that the computer "THINKS" they are closed. Then the car will go to sleep and you can start testing and still have access to all the fuse panels, etc.

maverik259

got it

maverik259

ok did what you said, hooked all the latches, disconnected the negative cable from the ground nut, connected the negative lead to the terminal, and the positive lead to the end of the negative cable, and it finally read 0.00 this time...

maverik259

oops just realized i did it wrong, ok so i redid it...

connected the negative lead to the negative batt terminal, and took the red lead and connected to the bolt that the negative cable connects too, and i get 1__._

Gramma_Benz

So now you can start pulling fuses and see which one may be affecting you.

GTibunny8v

Ok then you should get a mA reading. Did you check if the fuse in the meter is good?

maverik259

no, i mean its brand new multimeter that i just put the 9v in today...

I just don't understand how i can get more than 10A of current from anything when the car is off

maverik259

so i took apart the mirror housing and messed with the turn signal connector and dowsed it WD-40...well after some adjustments got it to work and got the LCD alarm to go out, so we'll see if i have a dead battery in the morning

Gramma_Benz

BTW, make sure you recharge your battery with a standalone charger and not your alternator. Otherwise your alternator will also fail prematurely.

maverik259

lol too late, ive been using my alternator to charge it the last 2x it died lol...well if it dies tomorrow I'll make sure I use a stank alone charger after i get home from work

maverik259

well car started up this morning with seemingly no issues so lets see if it keeps going all week like this...it started up fine after the first weekend it died to so I'm not quite out of the woods yet!