When i leave my car parked and off for more than a month i often have to charge/replace the battery. However when i disconnect the battery it somehow lasts way longer. I cant think of anything that is on all the time when my car is parked (no alarms, remotes)
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You need a multimeter in-line reading DC milliamperes. If you get a current reading, Disconnect one fuse at a time until it goes away. This is the circuit with your parasitic drain
It sounds like your vehicle has a phantom draw. It’s could be any number of devices as cars are full of them these days. It could also be a short.
The reality is it will be near impossible to trace and diagnose, and even if you did there is no on off switch that you are not flipping.
Old classic cars and older modern cars have this problem in common. 1 additional way of dealing with this would be to put the car on a battery maintainer/trickle charger.
Good luck
Car normally have small leakage even when parked, if it drains it in a month I wouldn’t care too much, just disconnect the negative cable or buy a charge manteiner
Make sure you don’t leave a phone charger plugged in. Some charge ports are powered with the ignition off and some chargers draw current even when not charging anything.
Mine has an alarm and I can see a flashing red light from above. Also the stereo has a clock as does the car…
Your car has a computer that draws power, it usually goes into sleep mode after a set amount of time. Your car stereo has memory that is kept active by the battery. You may have a short somewhere that is draining off your battery. If your car isn’t going to be driven for a long time it’s best to start it every so often. Also you can use a battery tender to keep it charged, I use one on my lawn tractor during the winter months to keep it charged up. Make sure to use an actual battery tender and not some cheap Walmart charger.
I had a car that did that. Took forever to find problem. Turned out that there was a problem with the switch for the small light in the trunk. The light always stayed on even when trunk was closed. Therefore a constant drain on battery.
Your car probably has remote central locking. This means there is a small computer in your car that is running constantly, waiting for the signal from your remote so it can activate the door locks.
Alongside this you may have features like alarm systems, or other features that will be constantly using a small amount of power.
There are also things like some batteries having a small amount of self discharge, or being affected by extreme cold or heat that will cause them to slowly use power, or an older battery having less capacity due to wear.
Add all of these things together and your battery will be slowly discharging over time. Normally this isn’t an issue, as every time you drive the battery is topped up, but left stationary long term this can cause issues.
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