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Car Electrical Ques: Parasitic Amp Draw
My old '94 Chevy S-10 is not a daily driver. But if it sits for more than a week the battery will be completely dead. Battery is 2-3 years old. Good volts with motor running.
I started checking for parasitic amp draw by pulling fuses and checking the amperage across fuse terminals. The biggest violator was the Horn fuse- About 150 mA. Another had 20 mA and the rest far less. I then confirmed the total draw by checking the amps pulled across the Pos battery terminal and Pos cable (cable disconnected and current running through amp meter). About 180 mA total.
Is 180 mA draw too much? It doesnt seem like it to me. Doing the math it seems like, ideally, a 600 CCA battery should last about 145 days. I just find it hard to believe the battery is bad because the truck has always done this, even when the battery was new.
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