Well don’t forget that parasitic drains can be intermittent. I’ve had two that I just found with luck. One I came out to the garage at night and the interior lights were on. Traced it to the door handle button. The other had the test light on and found nothing but then the light went full on. Traced it to the electronic load level sensor.
Pretty hard for a shop to find an intermittent unless known issues and they must be persistent and lucky. And they must have a customer willing to give their care up for a week or two.
Not sure how to take that (complement or sarcasm)… lol
But when you own your on repair shop or work for an independent shop, you have more freedom to figure things out, but when you work for a Chain company as I did the last 17 years (as I have said many times), then you don’t have that same privilege… Hence referring customers to AES in Nashville…
I still did side work up until my body said–nope your done, and stuff that I liked to figure out, plus personal stuff…
As frustrating as electrical work could be, it was very satisfying when/if you figured it out…Not saying a few times I didn’t get totally ticked off and say screw it, y’all figure it out…
Definitely a compliment. Many people in this industry think they can see electricity…as in “did you check the wiring from A to B?” they simply say “Yes, everything is plugged in and looks good” as though you can measure current or voltage with the naked eye.
None of those apply. I have had the dealership take it in three times and the problem is the defect doesn’t show up on the diagnostic. It is just much simpler to hook up a trickle charge. I hate to trade it in because whoever would get the car would have no idea what they are in for. I am just going to keep it as a second car until the wheels fall off rather than put a single mother in an extremely frustrating position. I can handle it now that I understand the problem, but it could be the straw for someone on the edge.
Well you are on your own then if all they do is look for codes. Hook up a test light and start pulling fuses to see when the light goes out. When you have identified the circuit, check the components. Find instruction on line on how to do it and a repair manual.
Technicians stopped using a test light for ignition off draw testing 30 years ago, they use an amp meter. The computers need a steady power supply for up to an hour before going into sleep mode, a test light won’t work.
How do you know they checked for fault codes? System faults are usually erased with a dead battery.
@Tester mentioned in another thread that some diagnostic codes are permanent, and don’t get erased even if the battery goes dead. I hadn’t heard of that before. Are permanent diagnostic codes a recent thing?
Maybe he should go out and buy a meter then to keep up with the times. That’s why I said to follow instructions from the manual or on line instructions. He/she/it though did say they didn’t find anything with their diagnostics. Maybe they need an amp meter.
I doubt buying an amp meter will be much help since OP doesn’t seem to be an ardent diy’er. OP might could use a laser guided IR temperature meter though. contact-less . Aim it at the fuses one by one. If one fuse is warmer than the others, pretty good chance that circuit has some current flowing through it.
Yeah I dunno. Many ways to skin a cat (not to get political) but a $10 test light worked for me. Biggest issue was the intermittent nature. If it’s not doing it at the time, no equipment will detect the fault. We maybe unless you have a scope or something recording history.
The faults classified as permanent are emissions related faults in the PCM, unlikely to find a PCM fault that leads to a battery discharge diagnosis. There are several computers in the vehicle with non-volatile memory, but the faults detected by those computers generally won’t explain why the battery discharged.
Those insurance company dongles that connect to the data link connector can cause a drain on the battery. A device that proves you don’t drive the vehicle often can contribute to a dead battery. The tech will remove the dongle to connect the scan tool for a computer scan and the problem is temporarily gone, until the customer reconnects the dongle.
Well there you go. Check for a dongle, tracker, or other add on device. Does your wife suspect anything (just kidding). I wouldn’t know one if I saw it.
