Electrical Drain "95"

[senrab]

I had to replace the battery as it would no longer hold a charge. Before I replaced it I had to put it on a charger everynight to get through the next day. I used a meter to find the discharge but couldn't get any amp loss to help isolate the fuse. The air shocks were my first guess and I pulled the fuse to eliminate it. It still goes dead even with the new battery. If I can't find it soon it will ruin this battery also. Alternator charging over 13 amp at idle, so it's trying to keep charged. I checked the antenna to be sure it was fully retracting. Another thread had the seat belt retactors as a possible discharge. I didn't think these were electric. Any other common drains? They're just not as simple as the old 70's cars!
There are several weird things going on also:
1. Bangs into Reverse hard (put new O2 in front bank helped for a month)
2. TCS on / off on its own
3. Change trans fluid, change oil, engine coolant low all started at the same time.

Any ideas?

[youngc]

My battery also used to drain on my 95. The ignition switch was not killing the power to my dash even with the key out. I do not know what was draining on the dash because there were not any lights on or any obvious power drainage. Replaced the ignition switch for around $100 myself. Part#26030594 from www.gmpartsdirect.com.

[treeboy38]

Is the check engine light on?

My guesses:

1) Motor mount
2) Speed sensor going out
3) Time to change oil (make sure you reset the DIC afterwards), Same with tranny (but check the tranny flyid and if needed drop the tranny pan), check your radiator and hoses to make sure there is no leak and if not then fill 'er up

[baron1701]

Im having a similar prob. When I park the car overnight, it can randomly have a dead battery. The battery only needs a tiny amount of extra juice to start but it damn anoying and im worried it will get worse. I hit the ignition inside and around with a high quality electrical cleaner and I hope this helps. If not, my understanding is that I should do a check and see where the drain is coming from. The problem is that at this point it is random, might not happen for a week or two.

How easy is the switch removal?
There is no repair option, wires that you noticed were frayed, exetera?

I think the battery is OEM original but there is no date stamp i can see without removal. My car is a 95, Should I just replace the battery anyway?

[baron1701]

bump

[baron1701]

UPDATE....

I replaced the battery and brought the old one to autozone. I think any old battery will fit, fit was something i was very worried about given the unusual size of the oem battery. Autozone tested it and the battery was junk. I hope that it will solve my issues with random "no start" conditions in the morning.

I will say that it wasn't the easiest problem to diagnose. The battery acted very good almost 95% of the time. The only time I had trouble was when I would let it set for a night. I almost thought it was the ignition , read a post about one that kept the gauge cluster on all the time.

later

[zephram22]

I think I'll get the battery on my 2002 checked out. I'm having the same problem. Except with me, the car needs to sit fgor three days before it drains down to around 3 percent and 4.2 volts.

[zephram22]

Originally Posted by zephram22

I think I'll get the battery on my 2002 checked out. I'm having the same problem. Except with me, the car needs to sit fgor three days before it drains down to around 3 percent and 4.2 volts.

UPDATE:

I've had the battery out of the car now for about four days. I installed charging posts on the battery and hooked the charger directly to the battery. Almost immediatiadly, the charger went into de-sulphurization mode (sry for the spelling, I seem to be having trouble with that right now). I also noticed that where the top cover joins the main body of the battery, there are sulfur deposits. very tiny amounts though. OK, so charged the battery and disconnected the charger to let it sit overnight. Connected the charger the next day and the charger said the battery was still at 95 percent. My only thought was "Hmm...if the charger says that the battery is still at 95%, then why is the little eye in the battery black instead of green?". Charged the battery back up and let it sit for a couple more days to see what kind of self discharge would result. Well, after two days of sitting, the charger said the battery was still at 90%. But the eye in the battery is still black.I was going to re-connect the battery today, but it got very windy out. Besides this will give me time to go through the car and look for possible places that I could be getting an electrical drain from. I disconnected the Bazooka Amp/Woofer. I'm hoping that is my problem since I did a pretty crappy job wiring it up in the first place.

Also, while I was checking out the rear fuse block, I noticed that there is a fuse for an audio amplifier. I thought that the non-bose six speaker setup in the 02s didn't have an amp built it. I dunno, I gotta look into it I guess.

[apollo7879]

Since you have the battery out, I would take it to a shop & have them put a load on the battery to see if it can handle the load. I think sears will do this for N/C ( at least they used to).

[saxman2006]

I am having the same problem. My mom has a 95 4.0 V8 Aurora. When we would go to start it after sitting overnight, the battery was at 11.1 Volts, and the car wouldn't start. We put a new battery from Sears in it, the correct battery that is application-specific for the Aurora. It worked for a day, then 1/1/06, 2 days later, the battery was completely dead. We jumped the car and took it to sears. they tested the battery, and it was bad, and they tested the alternator, but it was fine. When the car is running, it charges at about 14.8-15.1 volts. My mom drives about 80 miles round trip to work each day, and I went out today to check on it, and it is draining again. This is the 3rd battery in the last week, and it was down to 11.7 volts. Sears says that they will not test it again, because the odds of 3 bad batteries in a row are unlikely, they will send us to the dealership. What could be causing this? I have a high-end Mac Tools Diagnostic Computer, and the car isn't throwing any codes whatsoever. Please Help!

[saxman2006]

to apollo7879: Sears charges like 12 bucks to test the battery, unless you purchased it from them, and it is still under warranty. Mine was still under warranty, and I had to pay for the load test the first time, but after the 2nd battery went bad, they checked it and replaced it free of charge.

[apollo7879]

saxman, are you saying the battery that Sears installed, went bad in 2 days? Did they say the battery was defective, or was it just discharged? Hard to believe a current drain in the car would ruin the battery.
If you have a constant current drain with the car off, you should be able to isolate it to a particular circuit by connecting an ammeter in series with the battery positive terminal. Then remove fuses one at a time till the current drain is eliminated.

A number of forum members have had similar problems, ie; battery discharge overnight. It would a great help if they would inform everyone how they were able to resolve their problems.

[senrab]

I finally cured mine by unplugging the antenna, everything now seems to be OK. I did unplug it in the up position. I heard it trying to run one day after shutting the car off.
Good Luck!