Help with battery drain

Have you tried not setting the alarm, or is that not an option in your area? Are all the dome lights off? Check the obvious first.

Jay,

A useful technique is to connect an ammeter with a range giving a full-scale reading of about 10 amps (such as a suitable VOM meter) in series between the battery and the battery cable and then observing the meter as various circuits are disabled by disconnecting fuses, etc.

The important point to understand is that various circuits, such as the computer and alarm will draw some current with the car turned OFF so the question is whether there is excessive current draw. Additionally, some circuits may initially draw a higher current and then drop back to a continuing, but acceptable, parasitic level. On a 10 amp scale, normal parasitic current draws will not visiably move the needle but problem draws will be immediately apparent.

Attempts to measure "draw" with a volt meter or a test light from battery terminal to disconnected battery cable likely will not be meaningful.

Ed P

Greg, I did all of these things first. Not setting alarm is a good point and I did try it but no difference. The car was parked for a week at the airport and it cranked slowly but started up OK. Then when I drove it home it got worse!

Thanks for responding. I will plod along and try to find the source of drain. Jay

Ed, I am aware of the things you point out. I am an electronic engineer. Not having service manual or a schematic is a big brawback.

What I was looking for is someone to point out that fuse number so and so feeds the keyless entry and fuse so and so feeds the security system. It would narow down the troubleshooting to a limited number of devices. You do not have wiring diagram do you?

I will plod along and pull each fuse and relay and see If I can find the cuprit. I do not even know where the security module is mounted. I would appreciate if you can provide additional help.

Thanks for responding, Jay

It may not have any bearing on your situation, or perhaps it will spur an idea:

I once had similar symptoms on a '86 Old The retractable antenna had stopped retracting which I knew, and THOUGHT was o.k. Only after fighting the weak/dead battery symptom for weeks, one day I happened to be sitting in my car after I turned the key off to hear an faint, intermittent click, which turned out to be the motor continuing to try and retract the antenna. Removing the relay solved that problem.

Jim

Jay,

On my 96 Outback the keyless remote controller is is suspended by two plastic tiewraps under the dash on the extreme left side and near the firewall. There is a button hanging from the wiring harness an inch or two from the controller.

Ed P

Do you have an aftermarket radio? Sometimes those are not installed correctly and cause battery drain. In any case, try pulling the radio fuse and see if that helps the problem. I doubt the alarm has anything to do with it.

No, everything on the car is Subaru and was instslled by the dealer.

Intresting thing is that since I started 'poking around' it has not done it! may be something was stuck 'on' or some wire pinched somewhere. I hate it when things fix themselves.

I have the same problem with my 2000 Outback limited. I just took it into Sears to get a new battery because the car was starting slowly on cold mornings and a parking lot notified me that my car had a dead batttery when they tried to start it on my return. Sears did a number of tests on the battery and alternator and said it was fine but that I had a drain on the battery when the car was off.

I haven't a clue where to begin to troubleshoot this drain. The only coincidential item is that I changed car chargers for a cell phone about the time the problem started cropping up, but since the lighter is off when the car is off, that doesn't make any sense, though I have pulled the plug on the charger just to see if it makes a difference. I also had a problem over a year ago with the moon roof motor activating itself one rainy afternoon when I was driving along.

Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot this problem?

JDC,

I am going to keep after this problem until I find the problem. I will post the details of the fix when I find it. The basic process is to put and ammeter in series with the battery and pull fuses one by one and if one of them removes the drain you have found a circuit that is causing the drain. Then if there are more than one devices on that fuse, you either disconnect them one by one or trace a short in the wiring. It is a tedious job but that's the way you do it. There might be devices that have this tendency to short but I do not know of any. I just got the car a few short weeks ago.

HTH, Jay