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Finding a Key Off Battery Drain

By November 24, 2017Uncategorized

A new customer calls for to get diagnostics to find a potential battery drain on an 03 Dodge Grand Caravan they bought recently. Sure enough there was over 700 milliamp key off drain, low enough to go undetected on a daily driver with a good battery but enough to be a real pain with a week battery and/or occasional driver. A few minutes to do a voltage check on fuses in the electrical center and find the one with current flow, removing the associated relay made the drain go away. Looking at the relay it had one terminal leg that was shorter than the rest which is not normal, this relay had apparently been dropped  which jambed the 87 terminal into the armature so the relay was essentially always on electrically. Oddly enough this vehicle has apparently been this way since it was new and previous owners might have been told it was normal on vehicles with computers and other electronics. Whats lurking under your hood?

Custom Auto Electric

Author Custom Auto Electric

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