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Car Forum / Driving, Maintenance, Tuning / 4x4 Cars / April 2005battery draining every night
have a 95 land rover discovery that is draining the battery every night? any ideas as to what could be doing it? No lights no radio are left on but something is draining it and its driving me nuts Any help would be most welcomed > have a 95 land rover discovery that is draining the battery every > night? > any ideas as to what could be doing it? No lights no radio are left on > but something is draining it and its driving me nuts > Any help would be most welcomed Assuming the battery is in good shape, finding a short can be a real pain in the neck. Disconnect the main battery cable and place a volt meter in series. If there's any kind of power draw you'll get a reading on the meter. Now start pulling fuses until the power draw disappears. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Unfortunately, with modern computer controlled cars it's often more difficult than that. If you can't find the offensive circuit, you'll need get schematic and find all the circuits that don't go through the fuse box. It can be a very tedious process.  Signature.boB 1997 HD FXDWG - Turbocharged! 2001 Dodge Dakota QC 5.9/4x4/3.92 1966 Mustang Coupe - Daily Driver 1966 FFR Cobra - Ongoing project I think you meant ammeter (or multimeter in A(mmeter) mode, not voltmeter) in series. > Disconnect the main battery cable and place a volt meter in series. > I think you meant ammeter (or multimeter in A(mmeter) mode, not voltmeter) > in series. > >>Disconnect the main battery cable and place a volt meter in series. No, I meant voltmeter. Try it. Signature.boB 1997 HD FXDWG - Turbocharged! 2001 Dodge Dakota QC 5.9/4x4/3.92 1966 Mustang Coupe - Daily Driver 1966 FFR Cobra - Ongoing project > > I think you meant ammeter (or multimeter in A(mmeter) mode, not voltmeter) > > in series. > > > >>Disconnect the main battery cable and place a volt meter in series. > > > No, I meant voltmeter. Try it. That'll work for a rough indication. If there is any leakage path with an impedance significantly lower than that of the meter, you'll read battery voltage. Once all circuits are open, the VM will read zero (since the load side of the meter is effectively disconnected, just like waving the probe around in the air). The voltmeter trick is safer than an ammeter in the event too large a load is connected unexpectedly. The ammeter will either blow a fuse or smoke. SignaturePaul Hovnanian mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com ------------------------------------------------------------------ f u cn rd ths u r usng unx > No, I meant voltmeter. Try it. Won't give you an accurate reading of current if it is a voltmeter. All vehicles today have some draw key off. It is the amount of draw that is important, and a voltmeter won't indicate that. Did you measure current draw when off? Don't do one measurement, but monitor it for a while. Did you test the battery? Either could be your problem, but without tests you'll never know. If the battery is over three years old, maybe a good idea is to replace it anyway. >have a 95 land rover discovery that is draining the battery every >night? >any ideas as to what could be doing it? No lights no radio are left on >but something is draining it and its driving me nuts >Any help would be most welcomed pull your fuse on your anti-theft system Remove the negative battery cable from the battery and install a test light between the neg. cable and neg. battery post....cable end of test light to post and probe end of test light to neg. cable. a bright light indicates a strong current draw... a dim light indicates a weak current draw. Components that run when the key is off will have a static current draw on the battery but not enough to drain the battery overnight unless something is shorted and drawing way too much current. Check the battery and replace if faulty. SignatureMad-Dog '79 Chevy K-10 Slightly modified pictures can be found here: http://mad-dog16.tripod.com/ -- > have a 95 land rover discovery that is draining the battery every > night? > any ideas as to what could be doing it? No lights no radio are left on > but something is draining it and its driving me nuts > Any help would be most welcomed > have a 95 land rover discovery that is draining the battery every > night? > any ideas as to what could be doing it? No lights no radio are left on > but something is draining it and its driving me nuts > Any help would be most welcomed First off, disconnect the battery and see if it drains down on its own accord; you might just have a bad battery. Or, put a multimeter in series with the + terminal and see how much current your vehicle is drawing when "off". There will be SOME (clock, etc) but it should be minimal. To further isolate the problem, assuming it's not the battery, pull fuses and put the meter across the terminals of where the fuse just was. When you find significant current draw, you've at least generally located your short. If the above does not make sense, take it to a pro and let them find it. Life's too short to dink around with things like this, sometimes, and taking the dash apart SUCKS on almost any modern car! I bet it's your battery. -jeff |
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