Help finding an electrical leak

[sethron71]

Had the same thing with a Brand new optima red top once. First time the checked it passed all the tests but was always dead on me. When building the car I would speratically have it hooked up and it would be dead day to day but would take charge and work fine for a few hours. But second time they checked it, it was bad so they replaced it free of charge and extended my warrantee at sears.....not much help now!

Seth

 

[tekdeus]

They've always been a substandard battery but I gave up trying to convince people of it long ago. The guy on SF was wrong about one thing though: Interstate doesn't make them. Optima is a Johnson Controls product. Btw your problem only appears to be solved. It'll be back in time...

Well if 50% of these batteries are good, maybe I'll be lucky. What battery do you recommend? I have mine rear mounted near two 10" subs and like the idea of a non-spill, vibration-resistant battery.

I also double checked the current draw a couple of days ago. It was actually 71ma, not over 100. When I hooked up the ammeter to the disconnected terminals it read over 100. When I had the battery connected first, then disconnected while holding the ammeter on the 2 terminals, it showed 71ma. I think the back-up battery charging circuit may have been causing this variation upon hook up?

 

[Nick M]

Speaking of batteries, Interstate was made by Johnson Controls. At least for a while. I don't know if the manufacturer changed. Maybe it was just the Interstate Megatron. It has been a while.

Vibration resistant is how all batteries are made. So that isn't saying anything. Otherwise they would die the first time you drove down a road with poholes or bumps. And they shouldn't spill, unless you have an electrical problem, or don't have caps and the battery is mounted sideways or something.

Sears considered having the Optima battery be the main battery, aka the Die Hard after the Exide debacle of the 90's. They rejected it after testing. It is hard to be worse than Exide was, but they were. No durability, and weak CCA's.

71 or 100 milliamps is too high.

50 milliamps is too high. For future refrence.

http://www.autoshop101.com/forms/h11e.pdf

Page 6 of 18, I almost forgot. Good luck. Finding parasitic draw can be easy. Do you know the simple steps to isolate the circuit? Follow 3P's check first.