Car help

grantman

Member
I have a completely dead battery in my van a 1993 oldsmoblie silhoutte. My thoughts are that a completely dead battery is unusual so there is probably a short somewhere in my system that is draining the battery. Therefore I was going to purchase another battery and look for the discharge by pulling out the fuses one by one to determine where the short was.
1. Is this a sound plan?
My problem is I forgot how to read my voltmeter to determine a load on the battery so I was hoping someone here could help me.
 

nas19320

Active Member
You can test voltage of a battery with a voltmeter but you need a load tester to get a true reading off the battery, not just surface voltage.
 

nas19320

Active Member
Ohms is just electrical resistance. A battery load tester has a resistance coil in it that puts a load on the battery so you can get a reading. You can check if the battery has any voltage by checking for DC volts with your voltmeter, but even if you get 11v that may be a surface charge and when you put a load on the battery it may drop to 9.6v or so. I would wait until someone who has more knowledge with this kind of thing replies, I don't want to steer you in the wrong direction.
 

darknes

Active Member
How did the battery die?
Was it overnight or while you were driving?
Has it happened before, and how old is the battery?
These answers could help find the problem.
 

floorguy

Member
charge the battery or get a new one. ok. start the car and take the ground cable off the battery and see if the car stays running if it does than its not your alternator if it stall you will need a new one thats were i always start at.
 

gasguzzler

Active Member
We would need to know if it happened before, while driving, parked, all that good stuff Darknes asked. Please dont pull the ground off while its running. Bad idea= Mucho Dinero
 

nas19320

Active Member

Originally posted by gasguzzler
Please dont pull the ground off while its running. Bad idea= Mucho Dinero

I thought the same thing when I saw that.
 

yankeesrok

New Member
You probably won't listen to me cuz i'm a girl, lol. ut my dad has been a mechanic for 30 yrs and that's the quick and cheap way to test your altenator, by pulling the gr wire, it won't hurt any thing. good luck
 

darknes

Active Member
it might not be bad on older models, but on new vehicles, you don't know what you could screw up doing that
 
C

crm13

Guest
Something that I have seen happen quite often that can kill your battery, especially if you don't drive it every day, is the glove box light not going off. It's one of those things you don't really check, and depending on how long it's parked, your battery could go dead as a doorknob. Also, if that battery has gone dead a couple times before, you may just have a battery that won't hold a charge (unless it's a deep cycle, like an Optima). Also, if it's dead now, it may be worth replacing anyway. A broken cell in the battery will do the same. It will show a good voltage until you load it down with headlights or an engine crank, and then you'll see the voltage just plummet. You won't do any damage to the ecm, ecu, bcm, etc... if you disconnect the negative terminal while it's running. Your alternator should be grounded to the chassis also, so the control module is still seeing a potential difference with the battery disconnected. I disconnect the negative terminal from time to time if I trip a check engine while working on a car, such as forgetting to plug in a sensor or something. It resets the brain. I think you should check the alternator with a meter. Just connect it to your battery and switch it to dc voltage. Then, start the car. If the voltage doesn't go up to around 13.5-14 volts after you start it and it's running, turn on the blower motor and your headlights, and see if it drops below 12 volts. If it does, your alternator may be bad. It should stay above 13 volts with a good alternator. Then, rev up the engine and keep an eye on the meter to make sure that it doesn't go above 14.4 volts. Unless you have something aftermarket installed in your car, excessive current draws that are not obvious are very uncommon. Wiring usually just doesn't go bad. Even bcm's and ecm's draw nothing for current unless they are doing something obvious like keeping the domelight on or parking lights, etc. Also, I don't remember how far back GM had the door trigger feature for the radio, but if you have that, where the radio stays on after you shut the car down until you open the door, make sure your radio (or domelight) doesn't stay on after you leave the car. Just throwing some thoughts out for ya. But, honestly, I think that it's either the glove box light, or just a bad alternator or battery.
 

floorguy

Member
If your system is properly grounded and you pull the ground wire off you will have no ill effect these new cars want you to go to the dealer thats why its bad all of the sudden as long as your not pulling it off once a week you will not have a problem. a car will run on a battery till it is almost completely dead without an alternator recharging it.
 

grantman

Member
Thank you for the information. I will give a little history on the car. We have had to jump it twice because we left the door open for a couple of hours to clean it. The power door locks are acting strangely. You can always unlock the doors using the power switch. You can lock the doors using the switch when the car is running but you can't use the switch to lock the doors when the car is off. The seatbelt light comes on even when all doors are shut and the seatbelt is fastened. Occasionally the blower motor will stop running for a few seconds and then start again. All of this crap going on leads me to believe there is some kind of electrical problem somewhere.
 

floorguy

Member
also check your belt or belts make sure they are not dry rotted makeing them not spin correctly. sounds like an old battery or like you said possibly a short.
 

floorguy

Member
To test a short get a light meter disconnect the ground wire and hold one end on the cable and one end on the battery if it lights up that means something is drawing do this with the car off and no lights on at all even the under the hood light. I havent done that in a while but i think thats the right configuration.
 
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