How to find out 1997 Volvo 850 battery drain?

aarem
Mon, 08 May 2023 00:11:54 +0000
Maintenance/Repairs

My 1997 Volvo 850 sedan with 152k miles on it appears to be having some battery drain. So I disconnected the battery, connected the negative terminal of the battery, to the negative prong of my multimeter, the positive prong of the multimeter to the negative lead from the car and got a reading of 0.137. (The multimeter was set at amps first, because that is where I got a reading, the recommendations appear to be that we go down from amps to milliamps, and so I presume that this is amps we are talking about, and this is therefore likely huge.) Then I took out the Fuses #15, #6 and #7 in that order. It took down the current reading to 0.032, 0.006 and then 0.004. Removing any other fuse does not reduce the draw to below 0.004. From the chart provided by Volvo, it appears that Fuse #15 is for “courtesy lights, diagnostics, door open warning lamps, (remote keyless entry – which the car does not have), glove compartment lamp,” Fuse #6 is for “central locking” and Fuse #7 is for “Radio/amplifier.”

Question 1: I presume that the draw on Fuse #15 is the one that is major. Given that is covers such a large number of items, how do I go about finding the specific issues? My sense is that I will try a few of the easy ones, if they do not fix the problem, I take it to the dealer, which it is time to do anyway, for a major 150k service.

Question 2: What about the draws on Fuses #6 and #7. Are either of them major?

Thanks in advance!

18 posts - 7 participants