scottyikon

I have had a Dead battery 4 times since I have own car. I beginning to think I need a kill switch. I had the battery replaced under warranty about two months ago. I had a flat about three weeks ago and waited for a replacement tire for over a week (195/60-16 That's another story) My car was parked in the driveway with nothing on except the the wireless door locks and the cars internal computer. The dealer telling me that's normal. That's bull. That its normal for the computer to drain the car to so dead the doors don't open in 10 days. What the H... going on. Any Ideas?

ack154

iTrader: (7)

There's got to be a short or something going on. I'm on my OEM battery after nearly 5 years without a single issue. It has not yet failed to start for me.

XIEmperorIX

iTrader: (2)

Just asking the obvious but you're A/C,dome lights, headlights are all off when you shut off the car right? Like the switches themselves are kept in the off position at all times when you aren't using the car?

If all that is true it's possible you may have a parasitic draw coming from something or maybe a short like ack said.

Take it to a different dealer/shop and have them look at it. I can understand if you went through 1 bad battery quickly but 4 in a short span of time is definitely not normal.

If you want to check it yourself use a voltmeter on the new battery and check to see if you have the right amount of voltage..if I remember I think it's something like 12.6-14.6 is within acceptable range? bah I need to hit the books again...

But if the battery voltage is low that shoud tell you if it's getting drained by something.

Chuckie

do you have anything aftermarket in your car? radio amp radar detector?

Mouse

All valid suggestions above here.... one more to add to the list....
with the car running, check the voltage to make sure the alternator is charging properly. And also on that note... do you generally drive for longer than 15-20 minutes at a time regularly? frequent short trips can cause the battery to drain down w/o you thinking about it...simply because the alternator isn't running long enough to recharge what you just used. Rule of thumb... on average, it takes 10 mins. of runtime for the alternator to replace the starting charge you just used each time you start your car.

Davestoaster

The way to check is to measure "current" draw of the battery.

What you do is place a multi-meter set on DC AMPS between the POSITIVE battery post and the removed positive battery cable.

Set your car up like you would when you find the dead battery.

You should get a small reading on the multi- meter in the order of a few milliamps. This is normal for the clock and alarm system and other memories systems in the car. Anything more, like 1 or 2 amps or more, you have a problem.

You then start pulling fuses until the meter drops and you found the system or component that is causing the excessive draw, and your dead battery.

scottyikon

I got a 2008 XD RC2. The first time it failed I had three weeks of Medical leave. I had removed every load in the car. I have modified the original design in that I have power in the headliner box without the key. The first failure took three weeks of non use. There was nothing other than the car consuming juice. This last time. The only load that might of been on was the charger to my GPS. The GPS was not attached. I normally monitor my charge through a DashHawk device. My Charging system is working correctly.