battery drain ??

[rrclyoung]

2005 TB 4.2 I6.....My wife was complaining of slow cranking and a "buzzing" noise behind the instrument cluster. A couple days later the battery died. The charging system looks to be good with 13.95 VDC when running. Installed a new battery and now 14.40 VDC when running, cranks fast and no more "buzzing" noise. The concern is that when I went to re-install the neg cable I noticed a spark, Checked current draw and it was 700 mA. Is this normal draw with the key off, or is there something I need to look for that may be killing the battery. BTW this was the factory battery (3.5 years old) that was replaced. Just looking for a little peace of mind.

[maxwedge]

It is possible a module or 2 was still " alive" this can be normal on newer vehicles, to test for a draw the modules should be " asleep" for 15 minutes, so you will need a surface ammeter to check for draw because when the battery is disconnected for the test and reconnected you can re -awken them and the temporary draw returns.

[rrclyoung]

Thanks for the info. I will have to dig out my clamp on amp meter. I will let you know what I find out.

[Khill]

How big of a spark? Like arcing? or like tapping two 9volts together? I have usually noticed that whenever I reconnect my battery after fiddling with anything I usually see a spark or two while I try to line up the threads and have had no problems. It should just be the vehicle systems re-energizing themselves when the battery is reconnected. As far as I know there is never 0.000000000000... current being drawn because even the clock needs the battery to run on (also: car alarm, anything in the cig plug, inverters, even the PCM is lightly energized for a while). Maybe I'm special, but this doesn't sound like anything out of the ordinary to me.