TROUBLESHOOTING PARASITIC ELECTRICAL DRAINS

摘要

How many times has a vehicle come to your bay with a new battery, new starter, new generator - and the vehicle owner complaining of the battery going dead if the vehicle is not driven every day or so? From time to time I read about problems like this, and see them in my shop quite often. Most times the vehicles have had many new parts installed, wiring harnesses cut apart and modules unhooked, all in an attempt to find where those elusive electrons are going. The key to the diagnostic process is to get the problem to come to you instead of you chasing the problem. I would imagine that most of you folks own a cell phone and have lost it a time or two. When it comes time to find it, what path do you take? Do you start looking for it, turning the room upside down and searching, or do you grab another phone, call your cell phone number and then follow the sound of the ringing phone to its hiding place? So it goes with any diagnostic process; learn how the system works, do the appropriate testing, and use the testing results to find where and what the problem is.