dead battery

[XWrench3]

i have had trouble with the battery being dead several times. it took me a while to figure out that there was a problem with one of the door switches. it would intermittently stick so the dome lights were on, even though the door was closed. in the process of finding this, one of the peculiar things i found is that there is a 9 amp draw on the system, with just a door open!!! i know this has several dome lamps, but that is enough to feed headlamps, not dome lamps. i can find no other lights on, except the 7 (count them, 7) dome lamps that are supposed to be on with the doors open. i have no idea what else is powered up besides these. does anyone have any idea why there would be so much current being drawn thru the truck with the doors open? the keys are out of it, and the ignition is off. the radio is not powered up, and none of the other accessories are either as far as i can tell (i tried flipping switches and nothing came to life). even after replacing the faulty switch, i have had the battery go dead in just a few hours if the door gets left open (kids, go figure). i have never had any other vehicle do that. the battery was replaced last fall, and i have had it tested, and it passes with flying colors. and besides that, i also tried swapping batteries with my wifes vehicle (shhh, dont tell her that!)

[aleekat]

I would pull the fuse for the dome lights and see what the draw is with the door open. May be something else.

[XWrench3]

as a matter of fact, there is a 3 amp draw on the battery all of the time. when i unplug the #19 fuse, that goes away. but, i also have no radio, tachometer, or speedometer. so it looks like i have 2 problems. yippie, electrical problems like this mean huge money, and chances are, no one will ever figure it out. i can not crawl around under the dash (i am disabled) and i certainly can not pay a dealer to start replacing things one at a time until they find the "problem". i have gone this route once before. after more than $1000.00 and at least a dozen trips to both the dealer and an electrical shop. the only thing "fixed" was my wallet. i ended up trading that in on a different vehicle.

[XWrench3]

well, this weekend, i decided to try to fix the fog lighs that have worked intermittenly since a collision i had. i took it in to be repaired, and the technician decided to completely rewire the lights, for what reason, i have no idea. i have to guess he did not understand how i had it done, so he did it his way. the problem is, he neglected to reconnect a ground wire, left a hot wire dangling (without any tape on the bare wire), and cut my power wire in half under the dash, and jammed it into a fuse. it took me 3 hours to figure out what he had done. and at one point, and i do not even remember why i turned on the ignition switch, when i did, a relay (not the fog lamp relay) started clicking like crazy under the dash, and the dash gauges started going crazy. no hot wires were shorting, i believe that the lights or the relay were searching backwards for a ground, anywhere it could find one, and i had something turned in the right position. i may never know exactly what really was going on. but another 2 hours of repairing things, and putting them back together, and all the lights work like they are supposed to again. the dome light draw is still high. but at least the draw on the battery now is down to between 1 and 2 amps. i do sometimes leave the fog light switch in the on position, as they were originally wired so there was no power to the system unless the running lights were on. maybe it was finding a ground running thru several items< or ???? i do not know.