2008 Chevrolet Suburban - Will it drain the battery?

Maintenance/Repairs
1

I’m buying a newer Chevy Suburban. It has a DVD player in in it. Will it drain the car battery if we play a DVD without the car turned on?

2

does your cell phone battery drain when you turn it on? yes
it’s the same with your car battery. the more you use it without it running the more it will drain.

3

Seriously , you have to ask this question ? It is just like using your radio without the vehicle running. what do you think powers the DVD ?

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4

Welcome to Car Talk!

Yes it will drain the battery but you would need to run the player for many hours before it would drain a healthy battery to the point it won’t start the engine.

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5

The reserve capacity of the battery dictates that.

So it depends how long you’re talking about.

This is the amount of time a battery can keep a vehicles electronics running if the charging system should fail.

Tester

6

Well sure but for how long depends on the wattage listed and your battery. But remember it has a video screen, a laser, and a motor to spin the disc. A lot more power hungry that a cell phone.

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7

You’ll have to do a little research and some arithmetic. First find out how much current the DVD player uses. Say for example it uses 12 volt at 1 amp while playing. A fully charged car battery has a capacity of about 35 amp hours. That means you could play the DVD for 35 hours before the battery would be fully drained. You don’t want to do that b/c then you can’t start the engine. But you should be able to drain the battery to 1/2 capacity and still be ok, so that would mean you could run the DVD player for 15 hours, assuming the 1 amp figure above is correct.

8

Having the ignition in the accessory position will draw 5 to 10 amps with the DVD player off.

9

Yeah 6th grade stuff. Volts x amps = watts or more likely to have the watts listed on the back so watts divided by volts (12) = amps. So then add the 5 or 10 amps mentioned above plus George’s calculation and you see how long you can run it. My guess would be not long without damaging the battery. Better to use a portable with it’s own battery and recharge it at home. Or better yet a battery power supply like for your computer.