help battery drain in 24 hrs

[red_vb]

please can some1 help, i have only been able 2 drive my car only a hand full of times around the block this past year coz i have a drain some where. the other half says its not the alt not fuses. i think my wiring is going rubbery (that 2 me does not sound good?.). any info much appreciated.

 

[kopper69]

Firstly how old is your battery? If its over 3 years old or you're unsure of its condition, start by replacing it. Next you will need to get yourself a mulitmeter. Can get them from just about anywhere from about $15. This will allow you to measure the voltage of the battery when the car is off and when it is on. This will give you an idea of what the alternator is doing. Once you have a multimeter let us know and we can help you to do the measurements. It could be the alternator that is draining the battery. Other thing is lights. People have found their boot light or glovebox light would stay on and drain the battery - check those too.

 

[Hybz]

First thing is to borrow a battery charger off a mate, and charge up the car battery for a good 12 hours. If you have a small battery, and a lot of things running off it, then even if the alternator is working, it may not have sufficient time to charge it up.

If you replace it, get a 550CCA one. They're worth it.

As kopper said, you need to get your hands on a multimeter too. You can buy supercheap Digitech ones from Jaycar for like $15. They come in handy if you don't like forking out cash for an auto-elec every couple of months.

Once you've done that, you can determine what's causing the problem.

 

[red_vb]

ok sorry its taking a while got a multimeter ok oh the battery is only 12 months old (abouts), charged and ready to go, tried what u guys said to do when on it was going between 12-14v i assume volts and i had the little dial at the bottom Ohms set to 0-16 v, now this is a prob when the car is off its still putting out the same amount of volts.so the battery drains in a couple of hours, any advise is great thanks. silly me for got to say its a red 202. the indicator stick on collum is a little wobbly would that matter.

 

[ScoHar]

i've heard somewhere that earth leads can cause batterys to drain quickly, not sure how accurate this is, but your battery should be somewhere between 12.0 and 12.7 Volts with car turned off, and about 14.2-14.7 volts with car running.

 

[calais_cruzin]

the batt should put out 12v when the car is off, when u start it, it should sit around 14v 14.4v optimal if its sittin on 14v when its on ur alternator is working.

THis would mean there is sumfink using that power or ur cells in the batt dont hold charge.

If a normal cell batt goes dead more than 2-3 times fully drained it will not regain full charge.

 

[kopper69]

i've heard somewhere that earth leads can cause batterys to drain quickly, not sure how accurate this is

Not really. Battery wouldnt charge properly though which may lead people to think the battery is going flat?

 

[commsirac]

ok sorry its taking a while got a multimeter ok oh the battery is only 12 months old (abouts), charged and ready to go, tried what u guys said to do when on it was going between 12-14v i assume volts and i had the little dial at the bottom Ohms set to 0-16 v, now this is a prob when the car is off its still putting out the same amount of volts.so the battery drains in a couple of hours, any advise is great thanks. silly me for got to say its a red 202. the indicator stick on collum is a little wobbly would that matter.

If im reading it right, you are saying that the voltage across the battery when the engine is running is no different to what you see when the engine is off?
Engine off, Id expect to see ~12.4-12.7 volts. On ~13.5-14.3(its a vb commodore folks). If no difference or slightly less when the engine is running then this is a definite sign that your alternator isnt doing anything.

If Ive misintepreted, or indeed you have been a bit vague with the measurements then it could still be a current leak.

If its draining that fast it should be fairly straight forward to find the current leak, if there is one.

Have you tried the obvious? ie left the battery disconnected and see what happens? lets assume you have and it remains charged.

Next step would be to measure the voltage of the battery while it is disconnected, put the multimeter on the 0-20V scale so you get a reading to two decimal places. Lets say 12.63V Connect the battery and compare the readings.
Open the door and observe what the reading drops to with the interior light on.
One would expect a tiny difference when the battery is connected, perhaps dropping to 12.62V, due to powering perhaps a clock and the memory of the radio, but otherwise it shouldnt change. If the reading changes by as much as when the interior light goes on, perhaps 12.58V a drop of 0.04V, then there is something using current at too high a rate. The problem now is to find it.
Start by disconnecting wires to the alternator, careful here, they will be live from the battery. Then as suggested look for boot, glove box lights, try disconnecting the radio etc. Also pull the fuses one at a time from the fuse panel.

Hope all this gets you sorted one way or another.

 

[red_vb]

re-battrey drain

just a quick type 2 thank all people who answered my question it was the glovebox light, bugger me after all that. i am in the process of changing all interior to vl calais series ii and i did change the glovebox not that i thought it would be any diffrent, so thanks again.

 

[johnnie5]

for future reference

stick the multimeter on amps and disconnect the one of the battery terminals

put one lead on the battery and the other lead on the terminal and you can see if the car is drawing any current