I have a Gen 1 2000 Honda CR-V. I had a vampire battery drain and after fully charging the battery, I pulled the following fuses.
Auto door locks
Dome lights
Auxiliary power sockets (there’s the dash and a rear socket)
The vampire battery drain is gone.
The dome lights were clearly in the off position prior to the vampire drain.
One other item before my question, the front auxiliary socket became disconnected from the two wires so the wires are now not connected to anything and not capped.
Which of these three items do you think was most likely causing the problem?
It’s been suggested it was the door locks as I’m told there’s an actuator in that system that could have been causing the drain.
I ask because I’m thinking of putting back the fuse for the auxiliary sockets, but still leaving the fuses for the door locks and dome lights disconnected.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Disconnect the battery terminals, then put the ground cable on and then put a regular test light in series from the pos terminal to the battery… install the fuses one at a time to see which one makes the light the brightest… if one makes the light much brighter than you found your current draw…
You may a little light due to keep alive memory from the computers and radio etc…
When you do the test, if equipped, your under hood engine light might be on the same circuit as the dome lights. See if it is off with the dome light fuse pulled. If so, remove the bulb when doing the test. Trunk light may also be the culprit.
Once you find which fuse is linked to the parasitic draw , then you can check to see what all is on the circuit and start to find the source if the draw…
And yes you have to have all the doors shut and key out of the ignition
Good idea w/this sort of problem to always repair things you know are faulty. In this case the disconnected wires. Make sure there is no way for either to touch anything conductive.
Reminds me of recent Car Talk podcast puzzler. Owner complains brake pads don’t last enough miles. Several shops (including Ray’s ) not able to ID the cause, presumably thinking the actual culprit is owner’s braking habits. Later owner returns, saying brake lights not working. Ray’s shop fixes brake lights, owner returns saying “lights work good now, but how did you fix the brake pad problem too”? Ray has no idea, didn’t even work on brake pad wear problem, only fixed brake lights. Turned out the brake light switch got replaced, and it was faulty, causing the brake pedal to push slightly down on its own, activating the pads while driving.
thanks all for the great advice and the advice about the power socket wires not touching. I plan on getting back there adding extra length of wire and connecting the socket to its original working order.