Electrical problem (short?)

[BoneStock]

Wed night I went to work and everything was fine. I even sat outside for a couple minutes listening to a song before I went in. Thursday morning when I came out, I went to turn the key and... nothing. I got a jump and went home. After I turned the car off, I waited a few minutes, and turned it back on, just to be sure it would start again. It did so I went in and went to sleep. When I got up last night I went out to check it and got nothing once more. I'm going to pull the alternator and take it to autozone so they can test it, but I think that something is causing the battery to discharge. Nothing is left on when the car is off, and the only think I did was put in a new headlight wednesday evening :dunno: . I can use all the help I can get on this one. Thanks

[tozza6]

How old is your battery? it sounds like the problem i had with mine. My battery was only a year old but it was stuffed. It was the start of the cold weather that triggered things. I had a really small battery, put a new, bigger one in and i have had no problems since.

[shepherd79]

make sure your stereo turns off when you shut the car off. many people don't connect amps properly and they stay on all the time.
make sure they turn off.
also, check your battery clamps. if they have build up on them, you need to clean them.

[BoneStock]

It's not the stereo, it does shut off and I don't have an amp (hence bone stock). I'm gonna get a new battery first because the more I think about it, I don't think it's the alternator. When I drove home yesterday, I didn't see any signs of the battery draining.

[tozza6]

If it was the alternator it wouldnt be charging up the battery so it starts when u turn it off then on. Test it by putting a multimeter on the battery terminals when the car is running to ensure you have a constant 13 - 14 volts, if you do, the alternator should be fine

[N-Man]

i remember my car used to do that. my brake petal was slipping and it was causin the lights to come on, which in turn drained the batterey.

[BoneStock]

I took the battery back to where I got it and they are checking it out. The more I think about it, I'm pretty sure it's a junk battery.

[BoneStock]

Junk battery it is. As soon as they took it off the charger, the meter started to drop. They gave me a prorate on the old battery and I got a new one for $27.

[XJRiggs]

I'll only make this comment since you stated that you changed a headlight. I once had a simular problem with my 88 Accord LXi. I wasn't driving it on a dlaily basis but my brother was tinkering around with it in his spare time. Seems everyday he would have to go out and jump start it so I went and bought a new battery. We continued to have the problem but it wasn't obvious at first, that new battery had enough life to keep it going for a few days. After a some examination I found the root cause of the problem was a cracked wire going to my headlight. I guess from 12 years of flipping up and down had broken the wire and it was shorting out to the wire next to it.

The best way to check for a problem like this is to get a amp meter (10 amp, at least). Place the meter inline with the negative battery cable to the battery. This will measure the entire current draw of the car. With everything off it should be less than 0.03 amps. If its even 0.10 amps you will still have a problem eventually. With the amp meter still hooked up you can try to find the circuit causing the problem by pulling each fuse out, one at a time. If the current drops when you pull the fuse you have found the root cause of your problem. Just something to keep in mind for the future should you need to check for this.

Peace,
Riggs