not sure,but sometimes when a starter solinoid goes bad this can happen.by the sound of it that it kills a new battery in two days thats alot of draw

I agree with the everyone that your gonna have to slowly look for it.

Here is a tip that can save your battery while your looking for the drain: Get yourself a battery disconnect switch. They hook up easy, and don't cost any money (under $10). Everytime you park the car you just twist the disconnect. Then your not draining the battery while your sitting there.

I just got one and it's great. It gives me time to look for my short, and also doubles as a theft deterent because you can take the knob off completely so the battery can't be connected.

Ohms law... someone here speaks my language... If you already have a voltmeter chances are it can be used an amp meter as well, even cheap ones generally have an amperage setting and another plug in for the "hot" lead. Make sure when checking current that you hook up the meter in SERIES with the circuit. for example the red lead will attach to your battery post (Doesn't matter if it's pos or neg) and the black lead will hook to the corresponding battery cable. As everyone else mentioned at this point you can unplug fuses one at a time and watch for a drop in the current.
If your voltmeter does not have the ability to measure current here is a cheap AND accurate solution. Go to Radio Shack and pick up a 100 ohm resistor. Hook up the resistor in series with the circuit as explained earlier. Measure the voltage across the resistor. This voltage divided by 100 is your amperage draw. you can use really any resistor just the number you divide by will equal the resistor value. If you get a 1K ohm resistor divide the voltage by 1000, etc. The lower values will generally work better as it might be a very low voltage drop so the accuracy of your meter would then be brought into question. If this is how you decide to do it feel free to email me and I will give you more precise instructions. Take it easy.

Davii, excellent suggestion, and very accurate. I'm so used to having an amp meter handy I didn't think of it. Way to go.

Ken Styer

As everyone can tell, each of us have had a battery drain from one time or another. Great suggestions.

your right ,Bill, ours was the Cliford security system
Good luck finding it. It took us awhile too. but we added akiillswitch to ou battery cable connector too, got it at NAPPA for about $6.00 an it was easy to install on the end of the cable


|UPDATED|1/28/2004 5:25:49 PM (AZT)|/UPDATED|

My battery also goes dead after a few days. Tried the test light in-line trick..bulb goes out after delay timer shuts down. Used a smaller wattage bulb..could see a very very dim glow on bulb when timer times out. Pushed in on radio knob (ETR digital), and glow got brighter. Got a 10 & 100 ohm resistor and my handy Fluke meter. 10 ohm, shows .15 volt drop/10 should be .015 amp current draw. Used 100 ohm, got 1.3 volt drop/100 should be .013 amp draw. If I understand correctly, this shouldn't kill a battery...so does this mean the battery is bad?

It doesn't necesarrily mean the battery is bad. Try checking the output of your alternator. If your alternator is not properly recharging the battery it would cause the battery to die after a few drives. I do agree however that 130 or 150 milliamp draw should not kill your battery as long as the car is driven somewhat regularly. Good luck with it.

OK, here's another one........... Have you replaced the coil or worked on it? If it's not wired correctly the battery will drain very quickly.

Hey Zombie, having juice problems on the dragula?

I had a buddy his p'up truck would die over night the alternator charged but when hooked up with the engine off drained the battery,
Another thing you might try, many times it's one little lamp somewhere, I had one under the spare tire.
Go out in the dark and look around, just a couple ideas to give food for thought.
P.