I may have asked this before but dont recall.

My batt is not holding a charge although I do admit the car hasn't moved much............Spring is still coming.

Tonight I go out to the garage, lift the hood and hear this 'noise' form the drivers front fender (tick, tick , tick).

I open the ddoor insert key and turn..............faided lights and no start.

Yes the batts dead again

BTW...........when the car is running its fully charging.

I should add the batt is now on its 3rd season...........Interstate.

 

Hi Malcolm, the only thing I can think of in the drivers side (US) is the outside air temp sensor. But you never know what someone may have installed, there is an old radar detector on a shelf in mine.

As far as your charge level, I always plug mine in to a battery charger/maintainer if I am not going to use it straight away (I use the jump start connection under the hood).

I have killed my share of good batteries in the past, nothing worse for a battery than running it down.
It only takes a minute to unplug, check the levels and drive away with a fully charged battery.

Good luck,

DaveK9

 

thx Dave............I may have killed the batt when I left the key in the ign overnight............an issue some others have had but no idea what is 'on' when the keys are in.

I'm just mistified that the tractor batt. which recieves zero attention always works (age unknow but starts the tractor in -20c weather) as does the 2 batts in my Durmax truck (5 yro).

 

when I read the title of this thread I thought you were having a noise coming from your fender that sounded like a bat dying.

Dan
'91 928GT S/C

 

Bats in the old fender... good one!

Malcolm I'll be that tractor's electrical is a lot simpler then you 928.

 

Might be something to do with the ABS in front of the wheel , and the cruise control behind the wheel???

This problem sounds like you need futher diagnosis , one or more of the relays is probably sticking, Or one of the door pin switches isnt shutting off. roll down a window and then close the door in the darkened garage look inside the door towards the back side of the door see if the red warning light is not going out it may take a few mins for this to happen if it stays on for more than 8 mins then the relay is bad .
Go to www.928gt.com for a relay chart and fuse chart

Any rate charge the battery with atleast a 2 amp charge 6 is better, with the battery disconnected then leave it disconnected at the ground connection in the hatch area till your ready to drive the car

 

we have bats here also...........the flyin' type, don't help starting the car though but do eat serious amount of bugs

 

just a little.

 

I do have an ABS issue also...........new relay and all sensors clean......warning light on and I proved through hard braking its not working.

Cruise ctrl works well.

Recall where I live; the car is idle for 4~mths and the batt is out and on the trickle charger. The car starts well but after a few days there's no batt power.

 

I'd also suspect the ABS due to location and it has battery power direct feed (and you have other issues with it). There are other relays inside the unit (not on CE panel)

Alan

 

When a lead acid battery drains all the way to nothing and the drain is still on, it does do damage to the battery. You may need a new battery, for starters (pun not intended).

Do a test to see how much drain is on the battery when all is off. Should be ~50mA (.05A) or less IIRC.

 

thx Rod............thats the next step to replace he battery and diagose whats up with the ABS.

I know where the live wire is that Alan mentions beside the pwr strg res and those relays are on the ABS unit itself I believe; do you get at them from the front fender?

 

yes, you get to them from the inside of the fender.

remove the fender liner, and front guard. then you can see the back of the ABS unit. you will see a black plastic cover. on top there is a finger screw which you undo and that cover lifts off to give access to the 2 relays on it.

 

Malcolm ...I have found in the past that a clamp on ammeter to be very handy in tracing loads. It was my son that brought this to my attention. It sure beats taking the cable off the battery to do current tests. Good luck with your gremlin and I hope the battery is not toast..........Bill

 

The proper number is 30ma. The drain in my 89 used to be 50ma, so I started saying 50 was OK, but now for some reason my car is back down to 30ma, so I'll go with that again. Parasitic drain can be a bear to track down. I used to think it was as simple as pulling fuses and relays to find the offending circuit (with an amp meter bridging across the removed battery ground) and going from there, but it can end up being a lot more involved (pulling the CE plugs, then pulling or jumping individual wires on the CE plugs, also looking at unfused circuits). I've been working on a buddy's 90 S4 that started with 350ma parasitic drain. I'm down to 60ma after many hours of troubleshooting. I know the general circuit where the extra 30 is (rear lights), but I haven't isolated the offending item.