Trickle Charger Info/help, Please My Car Battery Drains Every Night And Car Won’t Start Without A Jump.
Posted in Car Batteries | Asked on Apr 29, 2010
Dealer has not been able to isolate reason for drain after much searching/money spent by me. Car runs fine after jump start, I can use it normally all day, stop and turn it off and it starts right back up again when I come back, but over night it loses the charge and has to be jumped again. Will a trickle booster work until we can isolate the real problem? How do I connect it, or does it need to be done by mechanic? and then how do I connect it each evening so it charges the battery? (I am NOT handy.) OR, can I just open up the hood each evening and take one of the battery leads off overnight? Will that work just as well? Thanks for the help. 04 Chrysler Pacifica, btw.
Battery is new, not the problem. Dealer repair shop has tested it and run other tests to with no good answer. Guys, thanks, but you are getting too technical for me. Can you just tell me yes or no, will a trickle charger help, and if so, do I just plug it in to the cigarette lighter or what?
Dealer has not been able to isolate reason for drain after much searching/money spent by me. Car runs fine after jump start, I can use it normally all day, stop and turn it off and it starts right back up again when I come back, but over night it loses the charge and has to be jumped again. Will a trickle booster work until we can isolate the real problem? How do I connect it, or does it need to be done by mechanic? and then how do I connect it each evening so it charges the battery? (I am NOT handy.) OR, can I just open up the hood each evening and take one of the battery leads off overnight? Will that work just as well? Thanks for the help. 04 Chrysler Pacifica, btw.
* 1 hour ago
* – 4 days left to answer.
Additional Details
Battery is new, not the problem. Dealer repair shop has tested it and run other tests to with no good answer. Guys, thanks, but you are getting too technical for me. Can you just tell me yes or no, will a trickle charger help, and if so, do I just plug
There are 11 Answers for "Trickle Charger Info/help, Please My Car Battery Drains Every Night And Car Won’t Start Without A Jump."
presuming your battery is good and can hold charge by itself and the leak is somewhere in the electrical circuit downstream. Its a smart idea to disconnect the battery every evening, although I’ll strongly suggest that you expect that you won’t put the wire back firmly one day and the car will refuse to start or worse stall on a bumpy road. To be ready for such a case just keep your tool to tighten the terminals handy and you should be good to go.
first your saying dealer a sin dealership who sales cars go to a shop who repairs them but my guess is the battery is bad will not hold a charged have auto zone check charging system they do that free most any shop or parts store.. can also check by removing fuse and with a tester dealers really not known for the mechanic’s.. you might find it this weekend volt meter read charge pul a big number fuse read battery is there any system you have added to car such as radio or alarm systems but a shop would be a better place to get trouble shooting done
the simple check is to remove the + wire from the battery(assuming that its negative earth) then put an ammeter on the free battery terminal and the free cable, if there is a reading you have a short to earth, now you must check all the components in the car until the ammeter needle reads zero. tony.
Battery chargers connect with the red clip to the positive (+) and the black clip to the negative (-) battery post. Hook up clips to battery first, verify correct installation and then plug in the charger. I would have your battery load tested to verify it is in good working order and will hold a charge. If you have a good battery go to a shop that specializes in automotive electrical systems and they will be able to locate the power drain. Do not rely on your alternator to fully charge a dead battery after the jump start. Only a battery charger will fully charge a dead battery.
I suspect that the battery is bad ,first have it charged and load tested.
then the voltage regulator that is internal in the alternator is my next guess.
the alternator will charge while the car is running and then discharge the battery while the car sits idle if the voltage regulator is bad
Trickle chargers are easy to connect. It’s usually just black to black and red to red. If your batt. cables aren’t color coded, there’ll be a + sign (red) on the battery, usually a large raised plastic . Also a – sign(black). Also, the black (-) cable will be connected to ground- straight to the engine and body somewhere. The red (+) will connect to the starter, a round electric motor looking thing right where the engine joins the trans.
Some chargers wil have a voltage switch – set to 12v, A low amp setting (2A) will likely keep it charged overnight. Use the higher setting(10A) if you need to charge it quicker.
If you disconnect your battery cable overnight (either one), and the battery is still dead in the AM, the batteries bad. Even a new battery can have a shorted cell. A battery hydrometer is a good test for that if the caps are removable (seldom used old fashioned method of checking charge – all cells should read the same, a shorted cell will be much lower)
If the battery stays charged overnight with battery disconnected, car wiring is at fault. You can narrow down the fault by removing different fuses each night (battery connected). Ask mechanic to show you the “maxi- fuse” for the alternator – that’s a possibility. I’d start with the dome light fuse.
the battery probably has a weak cell and won,t hold the charge overnight. unhook the battery cable before you go to bed then hook it up the next morning and see if it will start.
1 id replace battery..ive had good/tested batterys turn out to b no good.[really]..
2 YES trickle charger will help….= positive/red to red…..neg/black to black…
3 YES you can just disconect battery cable
4 any good mechanic shoud be able to solve problem in a couple of hours..
5 at night there is nothing on ???? no lights? radio? gps? glove box lite? tail lights?
the two main suspects for this are a faulty diode in the alternator allowing current to flow all the time back to the alternator and a frozen A/C compressor clutch which stays connected 24/7, feel the alternator and the compressor in the morning if either are hot or warm then that is the cause , if you have automatic climate control the compressor is on all the time even below freezing, don’t rule out a faulty new battery it does happen
Read you manual and follow the instructions for charging the battery. On some cars other components have to be reset when the battery has been disconnected and reconnected. Follow other suggestions to diagnose the problem. Be sure not to blow up the battery. This can actually happen if there is a problem charging the battery.
NO TRICKLE CHARGE WILL NOT HELP
the most common cause of a problem as such that you describe would be in the alternator
rather than a trickle charge which would be not recommended as it could cause heat as one source drawing voltage as the other was trying to restore it
until you find a reputable mechanic to fix the problem i recommend removing the ground cable from battery post at night when you park the car