pennyanguy
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- Jan 17, 2020
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Looking for some help from the nation. this is a little long so please bear with me. 2004 Suburban 130K miles (we have owned since 20K mi).. now my 19y old's daily driver. complete disclosure, it has a battery on-off switch because I believe there is a parasitic draw in the dashboard module, so he is instructed to shut the battery off if he is going to be away more than 30 minutes.
two weeks ago he calls me Battery is dead at school... I figure he left the switch on... go jump him..get him home and charge the battery on a 2amp Automatic charger overnight... next morning.. wont start so he takes my wife's van to school. I remove battery and take to walmart, they have to go through their dog & pony show and come back with battery is ok... no replacement.
Reinstall battery, truck starts twice in driveway OK, leaves him stranded at the store an hour later (says he disconnected the battery with switch) . Ugg, this time it took 15 min to get enough juice into it to jump start from my subaru... get it home, replace battery with one of two I have sitting on wintercharge for my boat. Again, starts twice in driveway. Next day he goes to school, then to the gym... and boom.. dead again... keep in mind he is disconnecting the battery each time he leaves the vehicle!
Another rescue trip, I bring the other boat battery (just bought new last year) and install it in the gym parking lot and drive directly to Autozone to check the alternator (theirs from last november)... guy says alt is putting out 14.5V.
Kid drives home, gets his LAX stuff, then to LAX practice... Shuts battery off... two hours later DEAD!
If the alt is putting out 14.5V, could there be something drawing more than that while driving? killing the battery while driving?
The only other thing I can think of is the starter.. sometimes while I am diking around with all this it "seems" the starter is laboring, then sometimes not. Its really hard to tell as once it has enough juice to turn over it does not turn over long before it starts right up.. the truck runs real well. Unlike distributor style engines you cant pull the coil wire and crank it for a bit to see how strong the starter is (or can you is there a trick I dont know of?)
So, any ideas?
I was thinking of installing a temporary ground just in case the ground wire is failing...
Tonight about 8PM I put the DMM on it and found the stereo with a .02 amp draw, so i pulled that fuse, and switched the starter and tail light relays just for giggles.. checked battery voltage 12.85V... started it up twice with no problems let it run about 10 seconds each time, checked battery voltage again 12.7.. so not surprising. At 11:50 I checked voltage again 12.85V.. so battery recouped some... I did this all with leaving the battery connected to the truck (disconnect switch closed). I am leaving the switch closed overnight and will check voltage in the morning.
All ideas are welcome.... I am tired of having to rescue the kid and my wife is threatening to buy him "a good car"!
two weeks ago he calls me Battery is dead at school... I figure he left the switch on... go jump him..get him home and charge the battery on a 2amp Automatic charger overnight... next morning.. wont start so he takes my wife's van to school. I remove battery and take to walmart, they have to go through their dog & pony show and come back with battery is ok... no replacement.
Reinstall battery, truck starts twice in driveway OK, leaves him stranded at the store an hour later (says he disconnected the battery with switch) . Ugg, this time it took 15 min to get enough juice into it to jump start from my subaru... get it home, replace battery with one of two I have sitting on wintercharge for my boat. Again, starts twice in driveway. Next day he goes to school, then to the gym... and boom.. dead again... keep in mind he is disconnecting the battery each time he leaves the vehicle!
Another rescue trip, I bring the other boat battery (just bought new last year) and install it in the gym parking lot and drive directly to Autozone to check the alternator (theirs from last november)... guy says alt is putting out 14.5V.
Kid drives home, gets his LAX stuff, then to LAX practice... Shuts battery off... two hours later DEAD!
If the alt is putting out 14.5V, could there be something drawing more than that while driving? killing the battery while driving?
The only other thing I can think of is the starter.. sometimes while I am diking around with all this it "seems" the starter is laboring, then sometimes not. Its really hard to tell as once it has enough juice to turn over it does not turn over long before it starts right up.. the truck runs real well. Unlike distributor style engines you cant pull the coil wire and crank it for a bit to see how strong the starter is (or can you is there a trick I dont know of?)
So, any ideas?
I was thinking of installing a temporary ground just in case the ground wire is failing...
Tonight about 8PM I put the DMM on it and found the stereo with a .02 amp draw, so i pulled that fuse, and switched the starter and tail light relays just for giggles.. checked battery voltage 12.85V... started it up twice with no problems let it run about 10 seconds each time, checked battery voltage again 12.7.. so not surprising. At 11:50 I checked voltage again 12.85V.. so battery recouped some... I did this all with leaving the battery connected to the truck (disconnect switch closed). I am leaving the switch closed overnight and will check voltage in the morning.
All ideas are welcome.... I am tired of having to rescue the kid and my wife is threatening to buy him "a good car"!
