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Dear all,

My sis bought a Spark one and a half year back. All of a sudden one day the battery got drained out. It was recharged but again when the vehcile was not used for two days, it got drained off. On contacting the dealer she was told that since batteries are bought some time back so it must have aged so better to get it replaced which was done two months back. A Brand new Exide battery was installed but last week again when the vehicle was not used for one week it got drained off completely.
Service centre as usual has various excuses for the same and is trying to clear the problem by just recharging the battery which i am sure shall not solve the issue.

request your guidance on the issue.

If the battery drains over a week there's probably an accessory that's consuming electrcicity when the car is switched off. Common culprits are dome lights, aftermarket accessories, including aftermarket headlamp relays, and related wiring.

You will need to get the wiring checked. If a Chevy dealer doesn't help take it to a good car electrical workshop or battery dealer. This may be a good time to check the car's charging system as well including the alternator and the state of battery cables and clamps.

If even the new battery had similar fate, something must be wrong with the wiring. Does the car have a anti-theft device installed? If yes, probably the configuration is not compatible with the car battery (in terms of power required). Also, how about music system, is the power supply taken directly from the battery terminals itself and is it running for a long time when the engine is not running?

Recharging the battery won't help as each battery has only a fixed no. of charging-discharging cycles.

I think you should get the car wiring and battery terminals checked; probably they are leaking current.

Hi all,
Need suggestions in diagnosing a issue. My friend owns a Santro 2005 XP model. Last one year, the battery gets drained off within 2 days.
Following options were tried on it.
1. Got it checked with 3 A.S.S but was of no use still.
2. Battery has been replaced twice still no use.
3. Removed the Autocop, no use.
4. Removed the music system, no use.

Suggestions or pointers to resolve this issue please:

Mod,
Could not find any thread on this, if there are any, please merge it.

You may be having a short in a particular circuit I would suspect the alternator rectifier diodes that have gone bad. Was the alt and the rectifier/regulator tested? Getting a new rectifier fitted is a simple job.

Secondly, did the technician check the entire car wiring especially those areas where joints were made? Most installers of after market accessories cut the insulation and join new accessory wires in parallel to the OEM wiring loom, over time these cause problems. I had a short in my car due to that and post this incidence I disallow any cutting or 'grafting' of wires on the OEM wiring.

Alternator was checked as per A.S.S.

Somehow the technicians, never wanted to check the whole wiring probably because of laborious work involved in it.

I would try the laborious route.Put an ammeter on the battery circuit (remove the negative lead and put the ammeter in series). Note the current drain. It has to be non-zero for your problem. Then remove all fuses. The current drain should be near zero as only the starter and alternator are in circuit. The replace the fuses one at a time till you find the culprit.

I can understand that it is a laborious task but it is necessary to get it done if you want to trace and fix the issue. A battery draining within 48 hours is a pretty serious leak and it will not only affect your charging system but the battery will go bad due to too many deep discharge/recharge cycles but the biggest risk is of wiring damage or worse, an electrical fire. You really don't want that.

If you have a digital multi-meter and are the DIY types you may be able to trace it yourself as per the isolation method outlined by sgiitk. The technician needs to do the same.

I would strongly suggest getting the electrical system checked thoroughly and at the earliest.

Simply starting the car and checking voltages at the battery terminal will not do. The rectifier needs to be tested separately once it is removed from the alternator assembly.

this should be the best way to find the culprit and also simple, not to laborious also.
stupid: Did not flash such simple and effective technique to narrow down to the problem.
Thanks a lot sgiitk
Somehow these technicians do not listen to the customers at all.

The procedure mentioned by sgiitk must be tried first. This will help narrow down the circuit that is causing the battery to drain.

I had also faced this problem on my 5 year old Chevy Spark and problem was narrowed down to the stereo. A.S.S was not willing to follow this procedure and they always used to blame the battery. I finally had to get this done from a local electrician. Never faced the battery drain issue again after disconnecting the stereo.

Note for Mods: My last post on this thread was submitted by mistake and is not complete, kindly remove the same. I cannot edit the same post since i am a newbie and the post wont be visible until it is approved.

This DIY will be good help to you.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars...battery-drains

One short cut assuming that with all fuses out the problem is not there. Now replace half of them. If problem is not there then this half is Ok. Else, remove half (i.e., 1/4 of all) of these and then check. If Ok then put back another half of the remainder - ie, quarter of whole lot and repeat.

This way you implement a binary search, which for 64 fuses will involve about 6 steps instead of 63! With modern cars the number of fuses is becoming huge so this may not be a bad way to go. Functionally, both teh linear and binary methods are equivalent. Of course I do not think the average car mechanic will be able to use this approach.

I am facing a strange problem in my 2010 i20. A month back, the regular car cleaner left my headlights on. This caused a complete battery drain. My battery is a 2 year old Amaron 45mA. I got the battery completely recharged. I use the car sparingly once a week and had never faced drain issues in the past. But after the recharge I kept facing issues regularly. Every week the battery drains and I need a jumpstart. I got it recharged again once (24 hour cycle) and had the battery checked too. It appeared to be fine.
I am wondering whether its a parasitic drain or the battery needs to be replaced. How does one check this. I dont have any meters to read the current. The battery person checked the current on idle and when it's switched off. According to the output both are fine snd the alternator is also charging as expected.

Need advice

Your battery is showing signs of failure. That incident where the headlights were left on and the battery ran down may severely affected it.

So do the following:

a) Get the car checked for electrical parasitic drain. Since you don't have a DVM and clamp meter take it to an auto electrician.
b) Fully charge the battery and have it load tested. If your batterywala doesn't have a load tester take it to someone who does.
c) If it is still in warranty get it checked by Amaron and replaced if faulty

Today one of the local mechanic opened the fuse box under the bonnet and checked the blower relay fuse. It was hot despite the car not being cranked for 3 4 hours. He suspected that it may be the culprit. Currently the battery is again down so he is not able to investigate and is waiting for the battery to charge again on his machine.