Battery Drain 04 ram 5.7

[bighillman]

Hello all, I've got an 04 Ram with a goofy battery drain. Sometimes it is fine for a month or two, then all of the sudden it will drain the battery in a night or two. It has gotten worse in the past couple of weeks, and I'm kind of at the end of my rope. The truck had been to the dealership a couple of times before I got ahold of it, and they never were able to fix it. Enough that the previous owner sold it. Here's the scenario, with the negative cable disconnected, I jumped a test light across it. The light got brighter and then dimmed over and over. I found the source of that. It was the red security light in the cluster. It would flash for some reason with the little bit of voltage that would travel through the test light. I unplugged the fuse for that, and got another drain. It was a wierd variable drain. Sometimes it would drain at 7.5 mv, sometimes at 72 mv, and sometimes at 150mv. I've never seen a variable drain like this. Has anyone else ran into this problem on their 3rd gen. Rams??

[Brucifer]

I have a very similar problem. If I drive the truck (01 Ram,V6,auto) it is ok, but let it sit over the weekend and dead battery. could the computer have some thing to do with this? I thought it was the radio/cd player. when you opened the door the cd would spin up. new radio didn't help

Did you find your drain? bighillman.

[KimMG]

Keep pulling fuses until the circuit that is causing the drain can be identified. Then unplug parts of the circuit until the exact source of the drain is found. Make an enlarged copy of the wiring diagram to help keep track of what you have checked.

[DDaut]

Had same problem replaced door switches and Seat belt control module and never had another problem again

[huntfamily5]

Hello, I have a 2004 Ram 1500 Hemi quad cab and have experienced the dead battery when I was gone on business trips. Before this began to happen my horn quit working. Then a few weeks later I went on a series of business trips. Duirng the trips my battery would die. To make a long story short... the dealership discovered that my horn pad had a fused wire in it that was causing a continuous power flow and subsequent drain. The wire was removed and the horn pad will be replaced. Problem solved.

[HEMIDAZE]

I know i'm not any help. I had the same problem. I tried everything before taking it to the dealer (not in a big hurry to pay $75 per hour). No one could find it. I needed a dependable truck so I traded it in. Hey wait.......I probably could have gotten it fixed for less than $35,000. HMMMMMMMMM.