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I really tried to do my due dilligence before I posted but I am stuck and need some help.
My 2000 Accord EX v6 battery will go completely dead (less than 1 volt) after approx 12 hours. The battery has been reading fully charged at 12.5 volts after 8 hours. But around 12hours it goes dead.
A draw test does not show any milliamps.
I took to AAA and they confirmed the battery, alternator test fine and the car did not die on them overnight, and they did not see a drain.
Anyone have any suggestions?
Much Thanks in advance,
Joe, Columbus OH
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There has to be a draw if the batt is good.
Are you sure you have it hooked up right and on the right setting?
You disconnect the neg batt cable and connect the meter in series with the neg cable and the neg batt post. Anything over like 50ma is to much.First, double check your current as Trcustoms suggested.
If you still see now current draw, try charging your battery and then leaving it disconnected over night to see if it still draws down to 1V as you said.
I suspect that there may be a resistive short INSIDE the battery which obviously won’t show up on a draw test.
Thanks for the quick responses. I will re check for a draw. It seems like it might be an intermittent draw, sometimes off sometimes on.
I will also let the battery sit unplugged after being fully charged. Its a new battery from walmart and has tested good, but I willing to try anything at this point. Wife wants me to sell my baby and I only cracked 130K miles on it!
With multimeter in circuit between the negative battery post and the negative battery wire I get .08 AMPS for the first 14 seconds and than .02 AMPS and holds constant. This is within normal range correct?
THanks JOe
It does sound like that 20milliamps is within range. To be 100% sure, you would need to check that against factory specs.
Actually the minimum static charge on a ‘good’ battery should be 12.6V. Whenever confronted with a situation like this checking the batter is paramount, I would take the battery somewhere and get a second opinion on it’s condition, you can always buy a load tester for $20 and do it yourself if your so inclined. Your parasitic draw readings seem to be in spec as suggested.
Update:
Second opinion via Advance says the battery and alternator are good.
I read that the fan relays can go bad and cause a battery drain. Not sure if that would show up on a drain test? Maybe intermittent? Other than pulling them off and shaking them for noise I do not know how to test for bad relays? For 20-30 bucks I might just replace them.
I also think it could be heater system related as I am noticed today the battery drained and others days this week it didn’t and the difference was I left the heat in the “on” position when i shut the car off.
Maybe it doesn’t like Thursdays? Always tries to go dead on Thursday. Going to troubleshoot this weekend some more although I am getting used to slow charging the battery after work. I’m going to figure this out.
Stay Dirty
Next time you have your DVOM hooked up checking for the parasitic load drain, have someone start to ‘wiggle’ test the wiring harness to see if a drain will show up then.
If the fans were an issue, you would see a drain. A bad alternator diode rectifier bridge can cause a battery drain but again your test should that the drain is within specs.
Back the truck up my friend. If you don’t see a draw when you do the draw test then the fans and heater system or any other system are not the problem, if they were you would see an unacceptable draw when doing the parasitc draw test. If you know the battery is good as you say and you are still going dead then the probelem is most likely your testing methods, you may want to go back and do the draw test again, make sure you start with the highest amp rating first and then work your way down, you may have such a larg draw that it won’t show up correctly on lower amp scales. Also I think it’s worth metioning that you normally need to move the positive lead in the DVOM to a different spot when doing amp tests. I hope to do a video on this at some point.
Update: I bought a battery/charging system monitor that plugs into the cigerette lighter from Harbor Frieght. While driving I notice the charging system will drop to around 12.3-12.5 volts. When the car is running in Park it stays at 14+ volts. Normal??? Could that run that battery down over a week or so?
I did some research and learned my honda has a ELD (electronic load detector) that will turn the alternator off while there is no electrical load (the thought being to increase MPG). Could this be part of my problem with an aftermarket rebuilt alternator from the autoparts store (on the car for 6 months no issues)?
While driving with the lights on the system reads around 14 volts. Im going to drive with my lights on and make sure my battery is fully charged and see if it goes dead while sitting this weekend. I like this in car charging system monitor.
I feel like im jumping all over the place on this post from battery- to parasitic drain- to alternator. Sorry for that. I just never had a problem like this. If i have to resort to disconnecting and slow charging the battery every few days I guess its not the end of the world.
Thanks everyone.
You need to go about solving electrical problems logically. In your case you have a battery drain, the fist steps are to check the battery AND the charging system. It is true that Honda uses an ELD but it’s rare that causes a problem with a draw like that so we are back to testing for a parasitic draw. Honestly I suspect that you have an issue with parasitic draw but unfortunatly it seems to be intermittent it’s imparative that you do the test correctly however or you will not get accurate results. How about we start easy and you could just disconnect the negative battery cable and let it sit overnight or for whatever period that is required for the battery to go dead. If the battery does not go dead with the cable disconnected you KNOW you have a draw somewhere and you should then redo the parasitic draw test to confirm that there is a battery drain of more than 50ma.
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