Why does my battery drain on my 98 Dodge v-8 pickup? If I don’t start it and run it every couple of days, it won’t start & the battery needs to be charged. I have just replaced the battery, I do not leave any lights on, yet there still seems to be something draining the battery. Is it possible I got a bad battery off the shelf? I have had the truck for 5 years without this problem. Any ideas?
You should be able to get a free alternator and battery test at one of the aftermarket parts stores like autozone, checker, napa, etc. Then if your alternator and battery all test good, start your own troubleshooting with the car shut off, key off, pull off the positive (or neg) battery cable from the battery. Now carefully touch the cable back to the battery post until you see a small spark. THis is the current draining your battery. Start pulling fuses one at a time until you see that when you touch the cable to the post the spark is either totally gone or is somewhat smaller. You can do the same thing with a decent volt meter that has a current meter, but most digital VOM’s cannot stand that much current. After you find the fuse (system) that is causing the large current drain, now you have to roll up your sleeves and dig into that to see what is malfunctioning. Hope that helps.