The battery in my 1998 Oldsmobile Bravada continues to lose its charge. The battery itself has been eliminated as the problem but something is pulling a draw even when the car is turned off. All fuses have been checked, car doors, glove box,ignition and alternator pulled but it still shows something pulling a draw. I can jump the battery to get where I need to go but the next morning it’s dead again, no noise, cranking, lights, nothing. Any suggestions on what it could be?
Have a decent mechanic run a parasitic load test…he will isolate the drain soon enough. Likely suspects: Alarms, remote starters, power door locks, stuck relays…
Yep, I have a '99 Bravda that I wish I had never bought. I have some good, practical, do it yourself fixes you can perform fairly easily before taking the car to a mechanic who will probably charge you an arm and a leg.
I was a professional mechanic for the federal government (Not the post office) working on government fleet trucks for years. 80% of the time charging problems were basic, easy fixes. So, once I explain the fix to you, you will understand how a dishonest shop can cost you tons of money. OK, to the point: A lot of the time charging problems come from poor or corroded connections. The battery and cables can look clean but actually have electrical corrosion that is really hard to see. Go to a parts store and buy the wrench you need to take the cable off the post. If I remember right it is a 3/8 wrench and the parts store will have a cute little wrench that ratchets to make it easy. also buy a battery terminal brush…Not a four-sided scaper. They don’t really do any good. Wait, before you take the cable off of the battery make sure you remember your anti-theft code for the stereo. On my '99 its a three digit code and programming for the code is in the owner manuel. Take that wire brush and clean all the crud - even though you may not see it - off of the posts and the cable. It won’t be real easy to do because there is a rubber overlap over the cable end. Then once you know everything is clean tighten the cables only tight enough so that you cannot loosen the little bolt with your fingers or by wiggeling the cable back and forth.
Some friendly advice which I hope will benefit you. As I said earlier, my Bravada has been undependable since I bought it new. It has been through a transfer case, two water pumps, three sets of head gaskets and various critical suspension parts. Most of it was covered under an extended warranty I bought, but the warranty eventually became useless because the warranter became suspicious of our driving habits (I have an Explorer with 250,000 miles on it and I have had, literally, no problems with it besides brakes and tires, clutches, and gas.). Biggest problem which I took all the way to a GM factory rep, is that the radiator would consistently, regardless of what I did, never stay full and after warm-up we could hear gargeling sounds coming from the heater core area. We had the heater core replaced but the sound continued. In my humble opinion, the reason for the replacing of the head gaskets three times was due to the design flaw of the cooling system. Something within the cooling system makes the radiator coolant and water turn to steam which the cooling system purges through the surge tank - the plastic thing that is part of where you put in the washer fluid. Also, while I have been replacing the head gaskets, I discovered that because of the month my Bravada was produced in that year, parts of the cooling passages that are used to circulate water through the heads and the manifold are blocked off because of the design of the gaskets which are only produced in one general way: for the opposite type of engine. To complicate it there are three types of 4.3 liter engines used in the States depending on which area of the country the car was sold in. California has its own engine because of smog devices, etc, etc.
Just before arthritis forced me to retire, at a very young age, I was a supervisor. I had the obligation of overseeing all repairs - trucks and light vehicles. I’ve seen problems like my Bravada issue for years, so I have seen the demise of GM for a long, long time. My humble opinion again is that GM will never successfully pull out of their financial difficulties, and we, the tax payers, will be perpetually bailing them out. With all this being said my best advice is that you get rid of the Bravada as soon as practically possible because GM will eventually leave their customers holding the bag and unable to find repair parts because they will take decades selling off all their patents. Earlier this year our local Dodge dealership would not accept our Bravada as a trade-in. Needless to say, I will never buy another GM product.