

- REMOTER START MILLI AMP DRAW INSTALL
- REMOTER START MILLI AMP DRAW UPDATE
- REMOTER START MILLI AMP DRAW DRIVER
The point is that the diagnosis may amount to inspecting the last place human hands touched the vehicle. Or, the product itself may be fine but the installer bungled the electrical hookup. For all you know, a recently installed car alarm, sound system or remote-start setup could be a key-off power hog. If the only change to the vehicle was that installation, then I’m suspicious of the product itself as well as the details of the electrical hookup.

REMOTER START MILLI AMP DRAW INSTALL
(I’ll return to batteries momentarily.)ĭid someone install accessories? To me, it doesn’t matter whether a car dealer tech, an independent tech or do-it-yourselfer installed accessories. The battery could be failing or it may be a replacement item with inadequate reserve capacity. In that case, the battery itself may be the culprit. But suppose the battery dies only when the vehicle sits undriven for a week, in an airport parking garage, for instance. For example, a battery that dies within a few hours suggests a relatively high-current drain. When did this symptom first appear? Did it occur only after someone worked on the vehicle? If so, then who worked on it and what did he do? Based on the work that was done, do any potential battery drain issues jump out at you?ĭid someone replace the battery? If so, is it a high-quality battery with the proper reserve capacity for the application? The time it takes the battery to discharge may be a useful clue as well.
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Okay, the driver shuts off the ignition switch and then the battery discharges. But the sharper the information the customer provides, the greater the chances of your diagnosing the problem quickly. The next step is gathering the vehicle’s history. Some battery drains can be maddeningly random.įor now, suppose that you secured a diagnostic fee. Intermittent or elusive battery drains require more test time, and that means more money. If pinpointing the problem is easy, you have the option of reducing the diagnostic fee.
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Meanwhile, reassure the customer that you’ll update him on the job as it progresses. You easily could burn 60 minutes or more researching a battery drain issue. What’s more, you may need to research the vehicle and its systems. Next, you must wait for the on-board electronics to go to sleep and then measure key-off current.

Anyway, where necessary, explain the critical steps you must take first-for example, thoroughly testing the battery and charging system. You don’t have to do this, but experience shows that battery drain jobs can just devour time. The first step to controlling the job is establishing an initial diagnostic fee. This testing takes time and knowledge not every motorist is willing to pay for that time and knowledge-period! That’s why I urge you to take control of the job and maintain control until you fix the vehicle. What’s more, the cost of a bungled diagnosis is considerably more than a trunk switch R&R. Today, however, there are many more possible causes of excessive battery drain. Fortunately, these same checks are still as useful now as they were in the late 1960s. If a bulb was hot the moment after I opened the glove box, trunk, etc., then the switch controlling that bulb was stuck closed (shorted). If it was off, then I looked for courtesy lights inside the glove box, console, trunk and engine compartment. When I was a teenager, older mechanics taught me a basic routine that diagnosed 99% of the battery drain complaints. The bitter fact is that component access on many vehicles falls somewhere between horrible and terrible. Component access may weigh heavily in your decision. One single technique isn’t fast and easy on every single car. But you must evaluate each vehicle individually to judge the most efficient way to measure key-off battery drain. Sure, some basic steps are ones you may already know and some steps apply to all vehicles. No, this is not your father’s battery drain diagnosis. I frequently meet techs who have never used a door switch “closer” or a battery drain test switch. Others still try to gauge key-off drain with test lights. For instance, many guys disconnect batteries without considering the consequences. But others struggle because they’re steeped in outdated methods and/or careless shortcuts. My field experience has been that some technicians are both well-read and well-equipped for these tasks. But here I’ll concentrate on areas of the topic that seem to be totally overlooked or else badly misunderstood. Thanks to modern technology, battery drain diagnosis is more difficult than it used to be, and I could devote page upon page to the topic.
