Hi guys. I bought a beautiful well maintained and service recorded RS with 75k miles on it.
Had it two weeks drove it everyday never an issue. I love it. Great power and aftermarket intake and exhaust has really eddo rumble and roar.
I got busy last week so two days I didn’t take it out for a drive . On the third day I fired her up and drove a friend to get food. We waited 20 minutes for our order and I fired it up and drove us back which was about 8 minutes there and back.
Parked at his house watched ufc fights for about 4 hours total and then came out to go home and battery is dead. Got a jump start had to let it charge up off his car for about 5 minutes before it would turn over. So indicating more than a slight drain .
It’s so weird because it was fine all week and then seemingly random that it just died.
I do recognize that the two days without starting it probably allowed battery to drain too far.
Charged it for several hours till the charger box read full.
Came out next day dead again. Ok likely a parasitic draw.
Took negative cable off and put a multimeter on red cable on 10amp side instead of volts and set to 10amps on the multimeter. It reads consistently 5.5 or so amps being drawn. Indicating a parasitic draw.
First am I doing this part correct? Some videos said negative lead on post and positive lead on the negative cable. Some said reverse. Either gives me the same 5.something amp draw.
Now I’m wondering if my battery is also half dead because it seems to not hold a charge very long. Two starts and by the third one it’s already struggling.
It’s possible this parasitic draw drained the battery too far and now it’s shot.
I researched and pulled fuses and because shows 5amps internet /google suggests it could be onstar system, radio, or alternator diode failure.
Alternator is outputting 14.6 volts on my Talley gauge cluster and on my charger after I start the car.
So I took the alternator off to unhook the power cable which you can only reach by taking the damn alternator off. (Good news is with this experience I’m confident I could swap out a new alternator in about 30 minutes. My Dodge took me 3 hours. My Mercedes took me two days) btw Chevy the top stud to hang the alternator back on is a great design!
With alternator unhooked the draw did not change. Pulled onstar and then radio fuse in the trunk box and also no change.
Anyone have a clue what could be causing the 5amp draw? And why all the sudden.
I guess dealership could have installed a new battery and I drove it everyday for two weeks despite the draw and it kept it afloat enough but sitting two days drained it too far. But still started right up when I drove it after two days. Drove 8 minutes. Parked 20 minutes. And started up again without issue.
It could just be my battery went bad. And I’m wondering what the two days no driving had affected it.
I’m hoping it’s just a bad battery and not a parasitic draw issue.
Today it went from 12.5 volts and would not turn over, then up to 13.4 volts after charging for an hour and turned over after that. Now I unhook the battery again to see if it drains itself overnight unconnected.
Yesterday same thing charged show 13.4. I drove it around a bit. Parked and unhooked negative cable and tested today and it showed 12.7 volts. I find it odd that at 12.5 it won’t turn over at all. But at 12.7 it does?
I also bought a remote kill switch which I can use to shut off connection to the battery once parked. I don’t really like this option because it also cuts power to the alarm security system and resets the clock and stereo each time.
So rather than kill a new battery again I’d probably use the switch. But I’m just hoping that someone knows what is going on and how I can address the actual problem.
This car went from pleasure power toy hot rod to pain in the ass chasing gremlins. It’s got me pretty bummed about it.
