If your car refuses to start after the batter had drained down completely and has been recharged you might have a parasitic drain on you battery. The fact is your battery is always working because we have devices in our vehicles that require a continuous charging and performance to continue to work. These items have become greater in number over the years as we’ve started to have more equipment and devices added the menu of electronics that make our lives easier in the vehicles we drive. If you have a drain on your battery you could try and find the drain yourself or pay someone to locate it for you.
What types of items can drain your battery? Anything that’s left on when it should be off can be a drain on your battery. In older model vehicles this almost always means you have left a light on or the door open which caused the light to remain on. In some vehicles that you might have altered by adding an improved sound system you could have an amp or stereo component that’s draining the battery and causing the trouble that you’re experiencing. There are many ways that your battery could be drained with some of the different pieces of technology we use in our cars today.
If you have an older vehicle that has been upgraded with some aftermarket items you’re going to need to have these things checked first. While a car alarm, stereo or other device can give you the enjoyment you want from this added benefit in your vehicle, these are typically the first culprits when it comes to a battery drain. Have these items checked right away and make sure they aren’t pulling any extra power out of your battery when it’s not supposed to be.
If you have had a stereo put in, even one that came from the OEM, you’re likely to have issues with this item as well. This could be a serious battery drainer for you and cause you to need to have the wiring redone for this item in order to have it properly set up to handle the power the right way. There is a strong chance when your OEM stereo was put in it was not wired correctly, which means you need to either remove the stereo or have it put in the right way so that you won’t have battery drain at all.
Proximity keys can be problematic for your battery as well. While this item is a convenience for you and opens and locks your doors without you needing to do much, this does pull power from your battery. The same happens on some newer models when the door opens on the driver’s side and the fuel pump is engaged. This is a convenience feature that allows the car to start more quickly, but does also pull electricity from your battery and causes it to drain if the wires that run this system end up shorting themselves out.
Battery drains can be difficult and expensive to detect, but if you’re an experience mechanic or electrician you might want to take a look and find out why your vehicle continually experiences the parasitic drain that can happen. You don’t want to replace your battery every couple months and because of this you certainly want to find out what’s causing the problem so that your battery can work properly and you won’t have to deal with the need to replace this item that we rely on for the power we need on a regular basis.
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