Unexplained battery drains - Page 2

halistan · #16 03-27-2015, 12:39 PM

Is that the click click issue? I always thought it would actually click as though it were trying to engage the starter but didn't have enough juice.

Ronald6 · #17 03-27-2015, 03:06 PM

I'm having the same issue halistan is having. I turn the key to start. All the lights work, the fan clicks on and the antenna rises as the radio turns on. But not even a click from the starter. I few more tries, the amount varies, and the car starts as strong as ever. I've had the "click-click" issue before with other cars. This isn't that.

dannmarr · #18 03-28-2015, 05:23 PM

Try taking a voltage reading at the starter solenoid while turning the key. Probably a bad connection somewhere.

halistan · #19 03-28-2015, 05:26 PM

That's a good idea. I'll give that a try. You don't think it is the ignition switch getting worn out? That's what I've always attributed it to in the past, but if not that would be good as its expensive to replace

halistan · #20 04-05-2015, 07:41 AM

UPDATE:

Okay, with the help of Master Kuo, we think we found the culprit for my battery drain issue.

It seems that the hood sensor that we installed as part of the remote start/alarm was not getting pressed down far enough. When the sensor is not pressed fully, it pulls nearly half an amp from the battery (really high but it is what it is). When it is pressed securely like its supposed to, the drain drops back down to 40-50mha

In addition, we put on another relay to replace the starter interrupt relay and the car starts up every single time now, so that's good.

However, whoever it was in one of the threads that I read that replacing the relay takes 15 minutes is on crack. That was a terrible pain in the @$$ and I hope I don't ever have to do it again.

svxcess · #21 04-05-2015, 08:49 AM

Glad you found the culprit, Ray.

Many years ago I started having weird electrical issues with my ZR1. Seemed to happen all of a sudden to a car that was electrically flawless.

The first words out of his mouth were: "If everything was working fine and suddenly you had issues that were difficult to diagnose, think back to the last thing that you did to the car ( whether a week or a month ago)"

I then remember adding an additional 12V power outlet in the hatch area. I had made a less than secure connection which caused minor intermittent shorting.

Fixed the faulty power wire at the outlet and everything returned to normal. That is why I have become so anal about proper crimping, soldering, shrink wrap, etc.

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svxcess · #22 04-05-2015, 08:56 AM

For another weird electrical problem I had on my polo. Read this thread:

http://www.subaru-svx.net/forum/show...per#post322733

And if you can't figure it out in the first 2-3 posts, scroll to post 15 for the answer.

A Subaru error, with a problem 10 years in the making. I would have never thought of this, and neither did the SVX Master Tech.
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halistan · #23 04-05-2015, 09:02 PM

Nice! Glad you finally got that resolved. It's amazing that you ever found it with something that off the wall

What seems to have happened was when we installed it, I also had a hood strut that was backwards so the hood was skewed a little. I didn't correct it then and it worked fine for some time. A month or so later, when I corrected the backwards hood-strut it shifted how high the hood sat in that corner where the hood sensor was and made it so that it wasn't fully pressed.

I saw notifications on my remote occasionally that the hood showed open, so I'd go out and press it down a little and the notice would go away (or at least I thought).

As it ended up, the sensor would come up again and start draining power again.

Glad it's fixed now though. It was very irritating