ILLSMOKQ

i have no idea what i need to do with the light tester to find out what is draining my battery? bought a new altenator and optima red top battery and it still drains down in about a day or two.....

ILLSMOKQ

also i pulled any wiring that i did.....

DaddySS

Take off the positive terminal and put the tester between the cable and the battery terminal. The light will not light if there is no current. In your case it will light because you have a drain, now go to the fuse panel and begin to remove fuses until the light goes out - this will give the area or group of things that are causing the drain. You need to be aware that the alarm and anything else that requires a voltage occasionally will cause a slight or momentary draw so take your time to work through and double check your results.

Once you have the general area narrowed down, you can start to look at the individual components and wiring.

eallanboggs

iTrader: (1)

You might NOT want to disconnect the battery as you will have to do the idle relearn procedure all over again unnecessarily and if you have theft deterrant that's an additional procedure you'll have to do. You already know you have a current draw which means checking at the battery is unnecessary anyway. You have a device that is drawing current when it shouldn't(vehicle turned OFF). An ammeter would be helpful here especially a clamp on type. It's doubtful you current draw is in the milliamp range as that small a current is unlikey to fully drain down a new fully charged battery overnite. You need to check for an unexpected load on a circuit that you believe should be dead. You start at you fuse boxes to narrow down the search. Once you find the circuit that is pulling down your battery you'll need a schmatic diagram of the vehicle to pinpoint the problem. A current draw big enough to pull your new battery down is going to dissapate some heat or make something buzz or hum. After you've located the circuit that is at fault by checking your fuses you will have already eliminated a lot of things and should have a good idea of what is left that could case this problem in the offending circuit. If you don't have a schmatic (which you should if your going to do electrical troubleshooting) listen for something making a sound like a relay chattering or a motor humming or a solenoid energizing or maybe a set of contacts picking when they should not. Also feel all the devices in the circuit at fault to see if they are warm to the touch when they should be cool. This isn't the text book method, but if you don't have a schematic or you don't know what your doing which apparently you don't this is the method your left with. Once you find the defective component you're on your own figuring out what's wrong with it and what caused it to fail in the first place.

ArcticZ28

iTrader: (14)

I disconnect my battery all the time for hours/days/weeks on end. The idle relearn is done by the pcm so that requires no user interaction and I've yet to have to go through any security procedures other than putting in the code for my stock radio way back when I had that. That only takes a one time call to the dealership for the code. The only thing that is troublesome is resetting the radio stations.

LS1IMPULSE

iTrader: (42)

I had the same problem in my old truck, watever the problem was it killed brand new optima red top in 3-4months, good thing they have a warranty