'95 battery drain problems

[nightowl89]

My '95 Corsica has had a hard life, so obviously it has a lot of things that aren't exactly in good shape. One of the problems I've been having lately is a very bad battery drain problem.

I noticed this when I got the car back in February, so I took the battery that came on the car and got it tested at AutoZone to find that it had a bad cell. I had it replaced, so the current battery is less than a year old. My problems still persist. Depending on how cold it is, I have to start the car and drive around in it for a little while every 3-5 days or I'll go out and the charge is so low that I can't jump off of a battery in a box. However, the car does seem like it's just at the point where it's almost got enough power to start, but not quite. The engine won't turn over, but not for lack of trying on its part.

I was wondering if any of you have had this problem and have any suggestions on what it could be that's draining the battery so quickly. At first, I thought it was the clock on the radio because it would stay on ALL THE TIME, but that seems to have fixed itself now--the clock display turns off when I take the key out of the ignition. I've taken it to the repair shop several times and the poor mechanic still can't figure out what's going on with it.

Oh, and while I'm speaking about my car, I was in a parking garage the other day going down an incline and all of a sudden I heard this strange clicking sound. It almost sounded like I'd turned on the signal light by accident. Right about the time that happened, my ABS light came on. Any ideas on what might have caused that?

Thanks for any help you can give me,

Virginia

[taillight]

You need to do an amp draw test with the engine off to see what is drawing power. Should be less than about .05 amps or 50 miliamps.