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Accessories stay on; Battery drains

Hey everybody! I bought a 1997 Jeep Cherokee Sport last November, with

106,000 miles on it. I've since added 10,000 miles. Two seperate but possibly related problems that started right after I bought it have me flummoxed.

The first is that when I turn the ignition key off, all the accessories stay on: the fan, radio, wipers, etc. I quickly learned to turn everything off before parking the car.

The second showed up a few weeks later. When the car is parked for several hours, the battery (which is a new die-hard) drains enough so that the motor will turn over but not start. If it's parked for a longer time, it has no juice at all. Sometimes, after using the power locks to open the car, I can hear a rapid clicking behind the dash to the left of the main guage display. If I use a jump starter it will start, and after I drive it for a while, it will start again just fine. So it doesn't seem to be the charging system.

I've talked to a mechanic who says it might be the coil or fuel pump, but that doesn't sound right.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, since I have to do this myself. I don't have the cash to take it to the garage.

Thanks!

Reply to
RJO
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Get yourself a decent multimeter and start poking around until you figure out where the electricity is going, you have a leach somewhere, prolly has to do the accessories not turning off...sounds like a stuck relay (stuck closed, allowing flow) or the ignition switch. If you put the ignition in ACC position does it all still work, and then maybe turn off after you come out of ACC? Someone have a link to wiring diagrams for this guy??

Reply to
Joseph P

The ignition switch is down at the bottom of the steering column and can be adjusted. Sounds like yours is loose or for sure out of place.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's

RJO wrote:

Reply to
Mike Romain

Reply to
mic canic

When you do get this fixed, another thing that helped me with long-term accessory drain is getting a deep-cycle battery (I got an Optima). It works great for things like leaving your GPS/radio on while parked and shut off (so as not to lose satellites, or to use your Jeep as the campout stereo system), etc. Gives you lots of freedom, and also protects you against cycle drain like alarm systems exact on your battery.

Good luck, Matt

Reply to
Matt

As for everything staying on. I'd have to suspect the ignition switch. Maybe at one point it overloaded and some of the contacts are now burnt on.

As for the unknown draw killing the battery

I would disconnect the positive cable from the battery and put an ohm meter between the cable and vehicle ground.

The reading should be in K ohms (thousands). I'd bet yours will be in the 100's if not 10's of ohms. Simple ohms law reveals the actual draw on the battery. Volts divided by resistance = current in amps

Once you've checked the reading, start pulling fuses. A couple extra clip leads helps get the meter under the dash so you can watch it as you proceed.

When the reading jumps into the K ohm range, you've probably found the culprit.

On mine it was a short in the power antenna which was fixed by simply leaving the fuse out.

Hope that helps

-Kk-

Reply to
KoRn Kid© (Child of the KoRn)

Thank you all. I did get a meter and was able to check the battery and fuses yesterday. I even got down to the ignition switch but ran out of time before I could test it. I think it's probably a ground somewhere because, even with all the fuses pulled and all accessories off, the battery was putting out a full 12.65 volts. tonight I'll check the engine block and the two others you mentioned. If that doesn't do it, I may go ahead and replace the igniion switch, as I am not sure how to test it.

Reply to
RJO

Isn't there a connector for the steering column just under the dash? Pull it apart and see if your current load drops to zero. That in itself won't tell you that the switch is bad or not, but it will tell you if whatever the problem is is on the key-switched side of the system or not.

Oh, and I'm not clear on how you have that meter set up, but if it were me I'd have it in series between one pole of the battery and its cable (so the meter is actually part of the circuit), with the meter set for "amps". With the meter set to "volts" and a 100+AH battery behind it you could be seeing the miniscule current draw for memory modules or clocks but you'll never see the whopping drop when you pulled the radio fuse and never know that what you were chasing wasn't part of the problem.

Radio. Hmmm. It seems that when folks pop in here and ask about curious electrical faults the radio is part of the symptoms (stuff like "my tail lights won't work but when I step on the brake the radio comes on.") Just for giggles see if you can pull the cable connector for the radio and see if it makes any difference. I don't know where you'd go from there, but still...

Reply to
Lee Ayrton

The accessories staying on says the ignition switch is dead or way out of adjustment.

I sure would check that first, chasing symptoms is a waste of time.

12.65 volts only means your battery is fairly new.....

You need to use amps with the meter in series with the battery cable. You should be drawing way less than one amp.

You can then pull fuses until you stop drawing, but...

To test if the ignition switch is bad, just unplug it and see if the amp draw goes away.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's

RJO wrote:

Reply to
Mike Romain

Reply to
mic canic

Oh, boy. I've no idea where my head went when I wrote the below, but on my way to a job I realized what a dunderhead I'd been. If his accessories are staying on with the switch off, and if they all go off when he unplugs the column connector, _of_ _course_ the switch is part of the problem.

And don't bother fussing with the radio, that's just a symptom, not a problem. Oy.

Reply to
Lee Ayrton

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