Ask an automobile mechanic.

extremedave said:
This looked pretty good info:


Can that battery monitor give you live readings? Once everything is shut down you could use that and start pulling fuses if you don't have anything else to work with.
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I use the fuse voltage drop method, pulling fuses will wake up modules. But first lets see how much parasitic draw there is.
 
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Kaleidopete said:
Battery tender? I use one on my Caravan because it gets little use. Easy to use, just plug it in.
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Had one on my dads Caravan. It would sit for weeks at a time, and then he would drive 2 miles. The battery never had a chance to charge up. Tender works well in cases like this.
 
mfennell said:
The Internet tells me 11.7V in a lead acid battery is less than 30% charged. Below 11.3 damages it permanently (somehow).

Using an infra thermometer is a great idea.
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Sulfated plates, or some chemical reaction that kills the plates.
Infra red is a very quick and easy check. Had a heated rear glass staying warm. Lots of radios too.
 
Karate Monkey said:
Real question: do those dippy vinyl covers actually save the air tools if you drop them? Asking for a friend.
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No on the dropping, but yes on getting scrapped and gouged when getting dragged across the floor or work bench

I gave up on the covers, the tools dont last long enough to bother. My first IR 231 impact lasted 20 yrs, now lucky if you get out of warranty period.
 
alex_k said:
My wife's Subaru Outback 2016 eats batteries. Dealership says, everything is fine, drive more often. The current one is 3d or 4th, I don't recall. When I changed the battery a month ago I also installed a battery monitor.

Today I connected my phone to the monitor and found that the battery is completely drained again. The car is not driven only for a couple of days and voltage was low but I did not expect to see that went down from 11.7 to 7V in matter of hour. Any idea, explanation?

I have no idea how to deal with this problem 🙁 . My dealership will be probably useless again.

View attachment 155868
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Your battery monitor should read in Amps and not Volts, a current draw of 0.048 Amperes or 48mA should be a normal draw 0.080A should be the most parasitic draw that I would let a car have, also you need to monitor spikes of current draw overnight. You will need an Amp-meter and check voltage drop on all fused or a less accurate diag is to pull fuse by fuse until you see a low amperage draw, and if all fused don't show a current drop then you will need to start unplugging control units but first look out for any water in vehicle
 
GTCHAMPION1 said:
Your battery monitor should read in Amps and not Volts, a current draw of 0.048 Amperes or 48mA should be a normal draw 0.080A should be the most parasitic draw that I would let a car have, also you need to monitor spikes of current draw overnight. You will need an Amp-meter and check voltage drop on all fused or a less accurate diag is to pull fuse by fuse until you see a low amperage draw, and if all fused don't show a current drop then you will need to start unplugging control units but first look out for any water in vehicle
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Thx, I ordered an adjustable DC power supply and an infrared thermometer, will start working on this as soon as get that stuff.
 
GTCHAMPION1 said:
Your battery monitor should read in Amps and not Volts, a current draw of 0.048 Amperes or 48mA should be a normal draw 0.080A should be the most parasitic draw that I would let a car have, also you need to monitor spikes of current draw overnight. You will need an Amp-meter and check voltage drop on all fused or a less accurate diag is to pull fuse by fuse until you see a low amperage draw, and if all fused don't show a current drop then you will need to start unplugging control units but first look out for any water in vehicle
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48/50 mA is the high end of draw, if I find above that it's considered a draw and start looking for the source. Or it will need a very large reserve capacity battery.

A fully optioned gm will usually have less than 25mA, maybe MB does things different. OH, wait...MB does everything different
 
Dingo said:
48/50 mA is the high end of draw, if I find above that it's considered a draw and start looking for the source. Or it will need a very large reserve capacity battery.

A fully optioned gm will usually have less than 25mA, maybe MB does things different. OH, wait...MB does everything different
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With 80 mA it will take about 8 - 10 days for the battery to go dead if you do t drive the car. I have seen cars with small batteries having a current draw of 65 mA and never going dead ...MB does not do things different, but MB has pretty much marine batteries lol with about 850(EN) on some which is about 870cca rating
 
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GTCHAMPION1 said:
With 80 mA it will take about 8 - 10 days for the battery to go dead if you do t drive the car. I have seen cars with small batteries having a current draw of 65 mA and never going dead ...MB does not do things different, but MB has pretty much marine batteries lol with about 850(EN) on some which is about 870cca rating
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Agree, but 8 to 10 days not acceptable to me. gm rule of thumb is min 28 days with a fully charged good battery.
 
Dingo said:
Agree, but 8 to 10 days not acceptable to me. gm rule of thumb is min 28 days with a fully charged good battery.
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my yukon wouldn't last that long - must have been too busy phoning home.
the sierra goes into some sort of battery save mode - i've seen it in the message center.
would be nice if it sent an alert to the app - it is more than happy to schedule an oil change tho.

i'm liking your Px of the diode pack for the leak in the metro. i've pulled most of the fuses w/o resolving.
I don't think it is a fused link, so gotta pull the wire.
 
Patrick said:
my yukon wouldn't last that long - must have been too busy phoning home.
the sierra goes into some sort of battery save mode - i've seen it in the message center.
would be nice if it sent an alert to the app - it is more than happy to schedule an oil change tho.

i'm liking your Px of the diode pack for the leak in the metro. i've pulled most of the fuses w/o resolving.
I don't think it is a fused link, so gotta pull the wire.
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The on star module is a very common problem for draws. Constantly waking up other modules too.

The battery saver mode is only key on, and shuts off certain things when voltage drops.

Temp gun the metro, something has to be warm.
 
Anyone got recommendations for restomod/pro-touring shops? I need someone to help me diagnosis a suspension noise I can't figure out even after pulling the interior.
 
qclabrat said:
Anyone got recommendations for restomod/pro-touring shops? I need someone to help me diagnosis a suspension noise I can't figure out even after pulling the interior.
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Are you using delrin bushings in places? What kind of noise is it, knocking?
 
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