Battery keeps going dead

[phil74501]

My battery is fairly new, bought it this spring. But it keeps going dead. I hooked it up to a charger over the weekend. It started yesterday. But is almost dead today. What could be the problem? Alternator maybe?

[ballysdad]

you probably have a parasidic draw when the car is off. Disconnect the neg battery terminal and put a test light light on the neg terminal and touch the tip to the Neg wire you have off. Make sure the key is out of the ignition and the hood light is diconnected. If you get a bright light on your test light you need to start pulling fuses one by one until light dims a lot or goes out. That will narrow your search down. You should read less than 60 milliamps if you have a meter with everything off.
Also before that check your batt after it's charged it should read 12.6v. Start the car and move rpms to 2000 rpms and check again should be close to 14.7 v. If it still reads 12.6v then take out and have tested. Check your grounds and terminals..clean them..

[phil74501]

Terminals are clean. I've had the car for about 3 years, and it never did this before this year. I noticed it doing this earlier this summer. I just thought I wasn't starting it enough.

[hermesbooking]

Check all your gound points and anything with the wiring. I am currently having issues with mine as well. Went throught the battery cables and found my ground cable to be shot and full of corrosion. Check all the points and clean them up and put a corrosion preventative on them, that is what I am currently doing to mine. Not sure if that will help, but never know with these cars!!

[hpservertech]

What do you mean it almost died today? Do you mean it almost died while driving it?

Take the alternator off and take it in to get checked.

[blueboy944]

Does your car have A/C?
If so, check to see if the heater blower fan is staying on when the car is off and the heater control knob is off. you'll have to open the hood and check visually because it is really faint/ hard to hear.
Long story short, if this is what's happening, you'll need to check your A/C relay (located under driver side dash - you'll ahve to do the crank yer head arch yer back over the e-brake maneuver to get at it - not fun)- it may have gone bad.

[phil74501]

I meant the battery was almost dead today. It had enough juice to run the lights on the dash and so on, but not enough to turn over. It started yesterday, but kinda drug when I first turned the key.

[phil74501]

It does have an A/C, but I haven't turned it on since I bought it. I'll check that though.

[flash968]

i had a low charging problem that turned out to be a loose nut on the main cable at the back of the alternator

[SolReaver]

Have the battery and the charging system tested. Sometimes they just go bad.

Next check for a current drain with the car off. Let us know if and to what circuit it is draining. Anything else is pretty speculative.