battery drain,
 

Hello All,

I have read a dozen post with no conclusion and watched a real good video from South Main Auto

I still have to ask,,, What is the acceptable drain on a 2003 suburban.

I get .8 amp draw after waking up anything on the truck. Sometimes after ~10 minutes it will drop to .2 amps and then if i let it sit it will drop again to .02 amps. Sometimes,, it seams to never drop.

.02-.03 seams a little high???

It appears the radio fuse is causing .5 amps and the TBC fuse is another .1 amp.

Removing both gets me to the .02 draw. My amp is bad and the radio sounds like garbage so the amp may be on all the time?

Any insight on this?
Chris

Re: battery drain,
 

Your car alarm uses power the whole time it is armed too.

Re: battery drain,
 

.02-.03 after around 20 minutes is fine. That's when the BCM typically goes to sleep.

The BCM should tell the radio to sleep as soon as the key is off and the Driver door is opened. Half an amp to the radio after the door is opened would make me look at the door latch switches.

You need to look at what the TBC fuse feeds and track that down too. 1/10th of an amp will kill the battery overnight.

Re: battery drain,
 

How fast will the battery self discharge if there is no battery drain?

I once had to work on this mitsubishi eclipse that had sat for 6 months in a shed with nobody even going out there for anything. It started right up. They put it in there because it wouldn't start and they didn't have the money to fix it. A fuse had popped. Replaced the fuse, car started. Made me wonder just how long a battery can sit in a vehicle without draining.

Re: battery drain,
 

A lead acid battery will eventually fail all on it's own with nothing hooked up to it. Not sure what the shelf life is.

Re: battery drain,
 

It depends...
A fully charged battery, stored in a relatively mild climate could sit for years, as long as there's nothing drawing power.

up here where it can reach -30 during the winter, a fully charged, and disconnected battery should be good till spring...

Conversely, if the battery is stored with a low charge, in those extreme temps, it's likely toast...

I don't want to think about how many batteries i've killed that way...

Re: battery drain,
 

Which batteries are immune to this? AGM perhaps?

Re: battery drain,
 

None. They're all dependent on a reversible chemical reaction. They all degrade over time.