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Car Forum / Saab Cars / November 2005expected current draw when car is off
I have an '87 C900 that seems to be killing batteries. After being parked for 2 weeks while I was out of town, the battery was dead (didn't even light up the dash board a little when I turned the key). I wasn't too surprised, beacuse it had been getting hard to start over the last month or so and the battery was 5 years old. So I replaced the battery. Since my truck sits outside in the cold weather, I bought a new battery for the truck and took the 2 year old battery out of the truck and put it in the Saab. Everything was fine for another month or so, and then I let the Saab sit for a week. It was very hard to start, but it finally turned over. Then the Saab sits for another week and now the battery is dead again. I realize that I put an old battery in the Saab as a replacement, but I do know the battery was good. It never gave me any problems in the truck. Before I buy another battery for the Saab I want to make sure there is no short or something wierd going on. The first thing I want to look as is how much current the car is drawing when the key is in the off position. The only thing that I can imagine drawing power is the radio to help it remember presets, and the ECU to help it remember things that it need to remember. Everything else should be disconnected. Does anyone know how much current should be drawn from the battery when the key is off? I don't have a FSM or anything for the Saab (and I know the FSM for my Toyota doesn't give this kind of info). I don't want to put a new battery in to have it get killed so soon, nor do I want to take it to $80/hr saab mechanics to look for a short. So I want to do as much diagnosis as I can by myself first. Thanks! Mike > I have an '87 C900 that seems to be killing batteries. After being > parked for 2 weeks while I was out of town, the battery was dead > (didn't even light up the dash board a little when I turned the key). > I wasn't too surprised, beacuse it had been getting hard to start over I don't have an answer for you, but my '92 c900 also had a dead battery after sitting for ~2.5 weeks last month. I suppose my car is probably drawing more current than it should, but since I very rarely leave it sitting for more than a day or two (after which it starts perfectly) I decided not to worry about it. I have an aftermarket radio and XM receiver, and both of these things draw current to feed their memories, so that may be at least part of it. These questions could be easily cleared up with a multimeter and a little spare time. John > I have an '87 C900 that seems to be killing batteries. After being > parked for 2 weeks while I was out of town, the battery was dead [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > Thanks! > Mike First thing to check is the glove box light, followed by the under-hood and trunk lights, make sure they're all turning off. >> I have an '87 C900 that seems to be killing batteries. After being >> parked for 2 weeks while I was out of town, the battery was dead [quoted text clipped - 30 lines] > First thing to check is the glove box light, followed by the under-hood > and trunk lights, make sure they're all turning off. In my 87 900 it was the seat belt retractors that were drawing current when the car was parked. John > In my 87 900 it was the seat belt retractors that were drawing current > when the car was parked. Oh I forgot to mention those, ripped them out at the very first opportunity and replaced them with standard belts. Wonderful car overall but those power seatbelts are downright idiotic, probably far more people who would have worn their seatbelt simply unclipped the automatic ones than those who wouldn't have worn it but did because it was automatic. It's right up there in the top 10 worst automotive inventions of all time. > Oh I forgot to mention those, ripped them out at the very first > opportunity and replaced them with standard belts. Wonderful car overall [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > automatic. It's right up there in the top 10 worst automotive inventions > of all time. is there a kit to replace them? or how did you do it. i've always hated them. >>Oh I forgot to mention those, ripped them out at the very first >>opportunity and replaced them with standard belts. Wonderful car overall [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > is there a kit to replace them? or how did you do it. i've always > hated them. Try a google search, there is (was?) a page detailing how to do this, if you can't find it I can try to explain it but it's easier when you have all the pics. Anyway the deal is you find an '86 or earlier 900 with good belts at a junkyard and pull them, then most of the job is pretty much a straightforward swap, other than some modification or replacement of a couple trim pieces. If your headliner is sagging then get the headliner out of the same car you get the belts from and redo that one, if you can use the trim from that car as well you'll have a really slick complete job. >> In my 87 900 it was the seat belt retractors that were drawing current >> when the car was parked. > Oh I forgot to mention those, ripped them out at the very first > opportunity and replaced them with standard belts. Wonderful car overall [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > automatic. It's right up there in the top 10 worst automotive inventions > of all time. Thank the US government for those, they weren't Saab's idea. In '87 or '88 a law was passed that all _imported_ cars had to have either passive belts, or airbags. Airbags weren't ready (to Saab's standards) by that time, so that's why we have the mousebelts. As you say, they probably cause more problems than they solve. As happens so often, a bunch of lawyers came up with a law with unintended consequences...go figure. > Thank the US government for those, they weren't Saab's idea. In '87 or > '88 a law was passed that all _imported_ cars had to have either passive [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > happens so often, a bunch of lawyers came up with a law with unintended > consequences...go figure. Must have been later than '87, my '87 Volvo has neither power seatbelts (thankfully Volvo never used that garbage) nor airbags, something else I'm not entirely sold on, but at least airbags are not invasive so long as nothing goes wrong with the system. >>>In my 87 900 it was the seat belt retractors that were drawing current >>>when the car was parked. [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > happens so often, a bunch of lawyers came up with a law with unintended > consequences...go figure. I replaced mine with standard/manual belts. Hated those automatic things. John > In my 87 900 it was the seat belt retractors that were drawing current > when the car was parked. ah, never thought of that. and now that i think of it, they've been acting up lately. thanks for the hint! >> In my 87 900 it was the seat belt retractors that were drawing current >> when the car was parked. > > ah, never thought of that. and now that i think of it, they've been > acting up lately. thanks for the hint! Then you've solved it. They don't go all the way to the back, so the limit switch never says "shut off", so they keep drawing current. The fuses are, I think, under the back seat behind the driver seat. My '88 did that, I ended up getting them into the right position, pulling the fuses, and having an extra clip to fasten every time I got in the car. Dave Hinz >>>In my 87 900 it was the seat belt retractors that were drawing current >>>when the car was parked. [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > Dave Hinz While I was still looking for suitable replacement belts I did spend some time screwing around with the silly automatic ones and got them working ok for a while. What I did was take the whole assembly apart, wash the old lube off the cable and then grease it up with new stuff. I also at one point had to fix the wire to one of the end position microswitches, but the lube is the main problem, it dries up and the whole mechanism gets sluggish and jams up. Probably not worth the time to muck with though, I like Dave's idea better, disable them while you look for a suitable junker to get the parts from. >> In my 87 900 it was the seat belt retractors that were drawing current >> when the car was parked. >ah, never thought of that. and now that i think of it, they've been >acting up lately. thanks for the hint! One more thing, see if you can confirm that the alternator is working. If the charging light on the dash comes on when you start the engine and stays on all the time, that means that the battery charging circuit (in the voltage regulator on the back of the alternator) might have failed. Replacment voltage regulators can be bought for about US$15 from a couple of Ebay sellers. Craig.  SignatureCraig's Saab C900 Page --> http://lios.apana.org.au/~c900 Sydney, NSW Australia Craig's Classic Saab Workshop -- For Saab 99/C900/9000 Enthusiasts world-wide! http://www.saab900classic.net http://www.saab900.org c900@lios.apana.org.au Come and explore our site, and check out our web-forums, mailing list, etc. Salutations: <snipped for length - not for spite> >> I don't want to put a new battery in to have it get killed so soon, >>> nor do I want to take it to $80/hr saab mechanics to look for a short. [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > John Interestingly, my old 99/C900 hybrid current draw was largely attributed to either excessive radon exposure from the Canadian Shield - or - electromagnetic disturbance caused by the Northern Lights. Ahh, for the salad days when the SAAB dealership was held by Jaguar Canada.. In early 90's it was all finally shorted when Big Mike Keane and I re-loomed the engine bay from the dash forward using delco gear whilst an exceptionally interesting native MicMac healing prayer involving sweetgrass and trout(s) went on in the lock-up next door. .. :) .. Depending on your year, there was a factory problem with some high-voltage bundled looms that saw excessive bay heat and age related resistance deplasticize the wire jackets over time. Eliminate the obvious first of course. But, just to make sure you are in on this - that trunk 'light' has introduced more stylish couples on a starry October nights to the 'eastern delights' of the C900 cargo bay than anything else engineered into the package. I always kept a good thick Canada National Pullman blanket in the back of ours in case just such an opportunity arose.. Squire.. Anyway, then start poking around the bundled wire where it meets the engine or a grommet in the shell. If you see any colour bleeding in the jackets or anything is kinda chalky - carefully dig a little deeper and look for green stains anywhere. Depending - then have any competent euro-centric shop go over anything you can't eliminate or is as above. -- Radio Free Dexterdyne Top Tune o'be-do-da-day Mississippi John Hurt - Frankie http://www.dexterdyne.org/888/197.RAM all tunes - no cookies no subscription no weather no ads no news no phone in no sign up required - all the Time > Interestingly, my old 99/C900 hybrid current draw was largely attributed to either excessive radon exposure from the Canadian Shield - or - electromagnetic disturbance caused by the Northern Lights. Hey Dexter, I don't know what you just changed in your newsreader, but your line length is now at 200+ characters. Salutations: >> Interestingly, my old 99/C900 hybrid current draw was largely attributed to either excessive radon exposure from the Canadian Shield - or - electromagnetic disturbance caused by the Northern Lights. > > Hey Dexter, I don't know what you just changed in your newsreader, but > your line length is now at 200+ characters. Your word wrap is turned off brother Dave. -- Radio Free Dexterdyne Top Tune o'be-do-da-day Mississippi John Hurt - Frankie http://www.dexterdyne.org/888/197.RAM all tunes - no cookies no subscription no weather no ads no news no phone in no sign up required - all the Time > Salutations: > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Your word wrap is turned off brother Dave. Oh, I know that, it's just that yesterday and today is the first time your posts have done it - and nobody else's are. I can reformat the messages to read them, but someone with a less flexible newsreader is just going to see the first 1/3rd or so of each of your lines, which makes them make at least 66% less sense. Dave Salutations: >> Salutations: >> [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > Dave Actually - my posts usually don't make much sense 66% of the time on the first read anyway.. :) .. What triggered the change here (a while back now) was actually google groups - but the problem appears to be the same at other web based NG aggregators. Have a peak yourself: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.autos.saab/browse_thread/thread/dfb53dbd6bc24 8bc/f7d5e43b9df36b7a#f7d5e43b9df36b7a If you resize the screen left and right you'll notice that most of the posts reformat oddly - or don't use all the left line space available on the screen if they aren't formated oddly. I read you as a Debian client - I use Opera here myself. I renewed my three licenses 2 days before thay started to give it away with the google bar embedded. Not sure if I should be bent I paid or happy I don't have to figure out how to strip the embed. Anyway - given you and I can, we are sort of stuck with client side word wrap on inbounds for the moment. If nothing else, it assures that links works. Bound to come eventually mon frere, every byte is sacred as Red China starts to really come online you know. -- Radio Free Dexterdyne Tune O-be-do-da-day Mississippi John Hurt - Frankie http://www.dexterdyne.org/888/197.RAM all tunes - no cookies no subscription no weather no ads no news no phone in no sign up required - all the Time >> First thing to check is the glove box light, followed by the under-hood >> and trunk lights, make sure they're all turning off. >In my 87 900 it was the seat belt retractors that were drawing current >when the car was parked. Fortunately those wierd devices have never been put into cars here - I think they're horrible and IMHO quite dangerous. Craig. SignatureCraig's Saab C900 Page --> http://lios.apana.org.au/~c900 Sydney, NSW Australia Craig's Classic Saab Workshop -- For Saab 99/C900/9000 Enthusiasts world-wide! http://www.saab900classic.net http://www.saab900.org c900@lios.apana.org.au Come and explore our site, and check out our web-forums, mailing list, etc. >>>First thing to check is the glove box light, followed by the under-hood >>>and trunk lights, make sure they're all turning off. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Craig. A friend of mine did require stitches in the end of his finger after it got caught in the track of one in a Ford Escort, perhaps he should have sued the government for requiring the stupid things but it'd probably just be a waste of time. > I have an '87 C900 that seems to be killing batteries. After being > parked for 2 weeks while I was out of town, the battery was dead [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > the Saab as a replacement, but I do know the battery was good. It > never gave me any problems in the truck. Well...... Batteries sometimes do just die like that. > Before I buy another battery for the Saab I want to make sure there is > no short or something wierd going on. The first thing I want to look [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > nor do I want to take it to $80/hr saab mechanics to look for a short. > So I want to do as much diagnosis as I can by myself first. For a tiny fraction of $80 you can buy a basic multimeter ( on Ebay for example ) that will measure the current for you. Graham > For a tiny fraction of $80 you can buy a basic multimeter ( on Ebay for > example ) that will measure the current for you. yeah, i already have a multimeter, and when i recharge the battery i plan on measuring the current. i just wanted to know what to expect. obviously, i know i shouldn't see 1A or so, but i don't know if 100mA or 10mA is reasonable or not. just an update: i finally got some time and looked at the current draw with everything off and it was only 20mA. that seemed reasonable to me. i pulled the seatbelt fuse and rechecked, and there was no difference, so i don't have to worry about the seatbelts scewing up stuff, and all the lights are off. so i think i'll just put a new battery in and hope it doesn't die. > just an update: i finally got some time and looked at the current draw > with everything off and it was only 20mA. that seemed reasonable to > me. i pulled the seatbelt fuse and rechecked, and there was no > difference, so i don't have to worry about the seatbelts scewing up > stuff, and all the lights are off. so i think i'll just put a new > battery in and hope it doesn't die. If you are draining your battery with only a 20ma draw, the battery is the culprit. Signature-Fred W > finally got some time and looked at the current draw > with everything off and it was only 20mA. Do you have remote locking? If so, the receiver is always on and draws a very small current. SignatureMH '72 97 '77 96 '78 95 '79 96 '91 900i > > finally got some time and looked at the current draw > > with everything off and it was only 20mA. > > Do you have remote locking? If so, the receiver is always > on and draws a very small current. You can get that much leakage around switches that are supposedly off. >I have an '87 C900 that seems to be killing batteries. Have you checked to make sure the boot/trunk light is not on? C900's don't have the light in the boot/trunk set up with any switch that's activated by the movement of the boot/trunk lid or hatch so if you leave that light on by mistake it'll stay on and with a normal lamp installed it'll pull about 0.9 A continually. Also if you can remove the cover over the ingition switch assembly and measure the voltage on the terminal corresponding to the 'S' wire. That is supposed to only be connected with there is a key in the ignition lock barrel, but it might be staying live all the time and whatever draws power from that wire might be putting a parasitic load on the battery when the car is not running. Regards, Craig. SignatureCraig's Saab C900 Page --> http://lios.apana.org.au/~c900 Sydney, NSW Australia Craig's Classic Saab Workshop -- For Saab 99/C900/9000 Enthusiasts world-wide! http://www.saab900classic.net http://www.saab900.org c900@lios.apana.org.au Come and explore our site, and check out our web-forums, mailing list, etc. Our 1987 900S Turbo Conv did exactly the same thing and I narrowed it down to the alarm systems. Although the manual said you could shut them off, I could not completely shut down the second one. We would leave the car for a week and the battery was dead as a doornail. So I installed a kill switch at the battery. A lot of people told me that the kill switch has a high failure rate, but mine is simple. You have to remember to make sure it is tight when engaged. Now each weekend when we show up at our summer place, I turn on the kill switch, reset the radio code and the car starts without a problem. Tom R. >I have an '87 C900 that seems to be killing batteries. After being > parked for 2 weeks while I was out of town, the battery was dead [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > Thanks! > Mike |
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