Check voltage and then recheck following morning and if weak battery it will drain with no connection.ĭownside is you loose all radio settings and may run a little rough while computer resets. One option to test this if replacing battery is not an option for some time would be disconnect positive connection at connection in engine compartment and wrap cable with rubber glove so doesn't ground out. So would rule out alternator not charging correctly.Īs fsr as a parasitic drain from the voltage and times you posted to me that sounds more like a weak battery not holding a charge vs being drained by something. Which i don't believe you had mentioned before. if it was discharging while driving it would be low or dead by the time you got to your location and you would get the low power saver warning light while driving. Well not to throw gas on fire but if you don't think you can change battery for some time and think the voltage is fluctuating randomly you could hook up a simple 12 volt gauge and run it into the cab so while driving you can see if voltage goes from charging to discharging to confirm your theory.īut. I'll be throwing in the replacement new walmart battery tomorrow and restart my testing over a few days to see if it's still slowly losing charge. So it could be any of these things, or none of these things if it's a bad alternator or bad battery. set interior lights to never turn on (in case they were randomly turning on during the night) Though it was still showing a slow drain over time, this is much better results when compared to my random decrease to 11.5v last sunday at 4:30pm after sitting for about the same amount of time, and all I did was: (Battery is 5 years old, so i'd guess it would eventually settle at 12.25v). I know older batteries lose charge over time so it could be the battery is still settling down the whatever voltage it can actually hold. Looking at this, the drain goes from 0.02 volts every 2 - 3 hrs, down to about 0.02v every 9+ hours. Parked Vehicle sunday at 6pm after driving and charging battery while driving. Your thoughts? Oh and also here's this week's voltage drops from the vehicle being parked for a few days: I'll still be changing the battery this week, but if it's still draining i'll be looking into doing the alternator test properly - straight from the alternator. Anyhoo, when connecting the ACV leads to the battery jumping terminals, the voltage showed 31.6v. Now, i don't have easy access to the alternator due to it being winter, so i did it through less traditional means: I connected the leads to the battery jumping terminals (I've seen a few sites mentioning you can do it this way as well, but i'm still not 100% it's correct and therefore my findings are inconclusive so far). Typically this is done while the vehicle is running, setting your multimeter to ACV, and putting the positive lead on the positive terminal on the alternator, and the negative lead on a ground and the theory goes that if you see anything more than 0.5v, then the alternator is at fault. I decided to do an AC voltage test to see if the alternator's regulator or diodes may be faulty. I also found a thread where a few journey owners had the same thing happen to them. My buddy had this exact same issue happen to him and it was happening at random times as well and it was his alternator draining the battery on random occasions while vehicle was off. I'm thinking battery as well, however i'm still not sold on the alternator being fine. Probably next Thursday.Ĭouple thing I did as well for testing purposes: disconnected my rust prevention module. I swapped the old Walmart battery for a new one and I'll be throwing it in the dodge when I get some time. This tells me it could still be a battery issue. It would simply not start, and it would show the low voltage indicator on the dash. No flashing or flickering or chattering relays. But when it would die, the dash would be fine. Old battery was fine everyday but died after two days of sitting. Walmart battery would die overnight sometimes and when it did, the dash would be flickering like crazy, and the relays under the hood would be chattering like crazy, on and off until I disconnect battery. Still could be a battery issue (Walmart battery faulty/bad connection, old battery weak) but here's the differences between both batteries and testing phases: However vehicle sat for 2 full days this weekend and vehicle would not start. Vehicle would start everyday and it seemed like that was the cause. Normal draw on battery is 10 milliamps now which is well within spec.ĭecided to swap walmart battery to my old battery for testing purposes. I simply wasnt waiting long enough for the abs module to be put to sleep.
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