Phantom Battery Drain

I went to start my car on Saturday and the battery was dead... So I went to unlatch the rear hatch to get my jumper cables and the button was locked.... hmmm... so I jumped it and she fired right up. I let it run to charge up the battery. I let it sit for a few hours and she fired right up. Then Sunday morning I wanted to try it again and sure enough... *CLICK*CLICK*CLICK*CLICK*CLICK*CLICK...

I went out back again to pop the hatch and sure enough, the button was locked and had to manually unlock the door. Jumped it again, fired right up and decided I'd drive it to Autozone to get the alternator tested (battery's brand new as of September). I pulled into the parking lot and put it in park and I realized that automatic door locks didn't pop. "That's strange..." I put it into drive and it didn't lock... back to park, nothin... OK... that must be where the battery drain is coming from. Alright... there's the problem.. I was going to drive home and see if I could find the fuse and replace it. But since it was nice I decided to swing through the car wash on my way home and opted for the $10 with the undercarriage wash. I should'a thought that one through, since my OPTI has a crack in it and will misfire when it get's wet... and sure enough, I pull into the car wash and the car quits... IN THE CAR WASH!!! LUCKILY I was able to get it started by the time the car wash was over. I was afraid I was going to have to push over those wheel chocks and then through those hi powered dryer vents...

Once I got home I realized the door locks popped when I put it in park... dropped it into drive and sure enough, doors locked. So there's gotta be a short somewhere that's causing that issue... just weird. Anyway... just wanted to share my little adventure... OH... and since I washed my car, it's raining today. Of course...

Phontom, eh? I would first verify that the battery didn't just die randomly. A friend of mine has a Lumina van and the door lock/unlock with the gear selector works sometimes, and sometimes not. Last week I had a battery just up and die in a wagon after a few days of out of the blue trouble. After I ruled out the alternator, I thought for sure it was an electrical drain, but decided to pull the battery off the cables and see what it measured. I pulled the battery out of the car moments after it finished a 15 mile drive, so it should have been well charged. I ran the meter on it, it showed 12v. I checked it 5 mins later it read 11v, 10 minutes after that it read 10v, so my battery had just up and died. Never had that happen before, but people used to tell me they go that way sometimes I just didn't believe it. Now I do. Did you get the battery and alternator test done at AZ or did you not get that far?

PHANTOM... whoops...

No... I figured I had found the problem and was just going to replace the fuse. Maybe at lunch today I'll run out and get them tested. I haven't had any problems with it until this weekend. I drove it to work this morning and it fired right up... It's strange that batteries can just die like that.

From past experiences with battery drain on the wagons,.
battery short then dies,.
alternator diode bad,.
daytime running lights module
water leaking into the rear grab handle lights,.and switching them on,.removed the bulbs, still drained when wet,. so taped up the powerewire so it couldn't bleed to ground when the whole damn light filled up l.ike a friggin fish bowl!!
ahem,.. then i fixed the roof leak, and the side window leak,. all good now.

Nick

good to know nick.. thanks

I can attest to the rear lights. I'd watch those damn things. Grrr.

Still haven't had time to address mine.....grrrr

Had one of those "phantom battery drains" on my 95' BRMW. Charged battery, then hooked up a voltmeter to battery. I watched the volts go up and down at steady,regular intervals. Then I started pulling fuses, still watching the voltmeter. When I pulled the fuse for the power antenna, the fluctuation imediatly stopped. As it was, the power antenna did not work when I bought the wagon, it was stuck half down, but it was not a priority for me. What actually happened is.....with ignition OFF the power antenna wants to go DOWN. The built in circuit breaker keeps trying, but only keeps tripping OFF, then ON, then OFF and keeps doing this. Pulling fuses while watching a voltmeter usually can point you to the bad circuit.

It ended up being a stupid mistake on my part. I had pulled the radio and left exposed wires hanging out... two of them must've been touching and it drained the battery. Since I've installed the new CD Player/Radio I haven't had any problems at all.