Well so much for that, went out just now on the five minute walk it takes to get to my car here at UW. Guess what? It doesn't have enough pull to turn the engine over, it's not completely dead this time like it has been every other time. This time it has enough to do most everything but turn on the stereo and turn the engine over, just clicks. And of course this college is ridiculous in some aspects, namely the need to have your ID to get anywhere and the fact that when I called the campus police asking for a jump they told me to call a tow company, and they didn't act very nice about it. Unfortunately, my buddy that jumped me last time went home for the weekend, so I'm currently in search of another jumper.

 

Just got back from Advanced Auto Zone or whatever it's called, battery tested out fine, but the guy's machine crapped out on him so he told me to go try Checkers and see if they could test the alternator. Checkers read an alternator that was working very well he said, he asked why I was getting it checked and I told him that it had died a year or two ago twice, and then twice this week. He basically told me that he has no idea unless it was the cold getting to the battery and sucking it up.

 

sounds like you need to get your mind off the alternator and battery, sounds like a draw on the battery.

might start by disconnecting everything aftermarket on it.

if you want to make it reliable untill you figure out the cause, disconnect the battery when ya park it so that it doesnt have a chance to be drained.

is the car not under warranty anymore?

 

No, I've got well over 45k on it, maybe up to 48k, not too sure, I was out of warranty back in June.

As for aftermarket that was the first thing I thought of, so far that would be just my underglow and subs. The first two times the battery died it was completely stock so I didn't think it could have been either of those. I know my lights don't pull that much of a draw, I've left them on overnight many times with no problems. As for the subs I've got the remote wired to a constant on, but I have a toggle switch for now that I turn off everytime I get out, it was the first thing I checked when it died, made sure that it hadn't be on. I've even looked at the amp to see if the light was lit up at all when it was switched off, and sure enough, the light was off. I've had the amp/subs working for almost two months now, and the underglow for about a year with no problems until now.

And here I thought I was doing good with everyone else's monte problems recently, but no, not only does my electrical system decide to go screwy, but today when I washed the car (35, first time over freezing in like two weeks) I noticed what looked like white paint on the passenger side between the front and back wheels in a pretty even spread. Now the paint isn't that bad, mostly really small spots, but it sure did **** me off when I saw it, and I have no idea as to where it came from. It's new since I've been down here, so it was in the last two weeks that it happened. Hopefully it was just something from the car wash that managed to freeze before I got it dry. If I find out that it was the construction company that's constructing a new building next to my parking lot I am gonna see if I can't get them to pay to have it removed.

 

Easy way to find an open circuit-
Pull the + side cable, hook up your tester between the post and cable. (my voltmeter sets on 20v) if your volt meter is showing a draw, start pulling fuses. When it drops- thats your open circuit.

 

Sorry to hear about the battery problems!

Sounds like a tough one, and I don't understand how the battery could be testing out fine. Is it a load tester?

I would say take the battery out of the car and put it on a Battery tender (auto shut off charger) There's no answer other then a drain. Now I have heard of a problem on some models that the transmission control unit can cause problems, but I heard that it was due to a nearby microwave causing it to power up while the car is off. Perhaps a local source of strong microwaves? My only thing is that there is NO way it should drain the battery in 5 minutes. Something else is drawing from your battery. How many watts on the sub? You havea Capacitor for it? Next thing. If you have to walk away from the car for less than 10 minutes, use the auto start feature. This will keep the engine running, the doors locked, and keep the alternator charging the battery.

Goodluck, let us know!

 

It's usually fine for a day or two, we'll see Monday when I go to start it again, or maybe tomorrow. The amp powering the subs is only a 400w with no capacitor, how much could I stand to gain with a capacitor?

 

Okay, my underglow didn't seem to be working either so I pulled both fuses in the fuse box that I have for the underglow, both appeared to be fine. That night when I went to see if maybe I could coax the lights into turning on they lit right up. This makes me think that there must have been something in the underglow set up that was pulling on the battery, as I said before, after one night of lights on with the car off it would still start up just fine, but maybe a few days was too much for it.

I'm thinking that somehow the lights were pulling power but not lighting up, causing me to think that they were off. We'll see next time I leave the car sitting for a few days as to whether or not that was the problem.