Battery Keep Dying - Car Drawing Power

Parasitic battery draws are ususlly from stereos, alarms, or remote key switches.  If none of these apply, I would suspect your voltage regulator, especially since your alternator charging seems faulty.  Good luck and please let others know what you find.  That way, we all learn.

Why am I thinking there is a faulty diode (or like circuit) in the mix here...honestly not sure.

 Your Alt has a Diode  Try this!  Pull the lead on the alt and see if the drain stops

Thanks for this idea, I'll test it and let you know!  It does sound like the alternator is going south in any case.

Old Yeler had my idea. I would try pulling the lead and seeing if you still have a draw.

Just to keep the battery up on my speedster when I'm not driving it, I bought a solar panel charger.  It was under $20 on one of the deal-a-day sites.  Does a great job of keeping the battery charged if I don't drive the car for a few weeks.  I know, I know, half the members here will just say "drive the damn thing", but that's hard sometimes.  I mounted the solar panel outside the garage and the cable is long enough to connect to the car inside.

-=theron

That's so ironic!

Using solar to charge a gross polluter...

 

I like your style, Theron!

Was it the alternator?

My dual Bad Boy horns were leaking to ground, bad wiring job!  My mechanic re-wired it and now it's all good.

Great! While you're at it; if I were you I'd check into having the alternator fixed. Not sure if the smaller 356 pulley that's used in the VS's kills them quicker. I had mine go in less than 9,000 miles. Turned out to be the ball bearings; those were replaced and I kept it as a spare because I went for a Bosch remanufactured unit from Auto Parts Warehouse. Still working good. Also; when I won't use the car for some time I just disconnect both battery cables.

I'm having a small problem with what appears to be inconsistent or dirty power.  My radio will suddenly lose it's settings, my iPod will freeze up and I'll need to reboot it, I'll occasionally get very loud pops through my sound system, and I keep having this nagging feeling that it's something to do with the alternator.

 

I've had a battery place and my mechanic check out the alternator and they say it's okay, but I'm wondering if it's intermittent and they just don't see the problem when it's happening.

 

Any ideas on how to check for this?

I remember I used a relay when I swapped the single Beetle horn in my VS with the dual tone Hella set. Were your new horns wired without a relay? Maybe they could be doing something to the wiring? Or maybe the electrical system can't handle the stereo system, etc? From what I've seen it looks like the wiring on VS's is fairly simple and probably not designed to take extra load.

How is your iPod connected?  Just through a 1/8" earphone plug or via a docking plug on the bottom of the iPod?  I suspect the latter, because using just the earphone jack won't affect the programmed operation of the unit and I suspect that you have an IP cable running from the back of the radio to the iPod, supplying power to the iPod and audio to the radio.  When you hear the "POP!" in your speakers, do you see anything else haoppening?  Like a flash or something with your lights?  The needle gauges (fuel, temp and tach) jump momentarily?  A lightning bolt and smoke coming from under the dash? (just kidding).... 

 

Soooooo..........

 

Kinda sounds like either the power lead running from the battery to the fuse panel is loose (but that would cause your lights to flicker, too), or the connection from the fuses to the radio/iPod is loose. It might be on the ground side to the radio, but I would bet on the power side.  If it is not an external power issue to the radio unit, I would then suspect something inside the radio, because it is affecting the audio amplifier (the POP!) as well as the slaved power feed to the iPod and THEN my guess would be a failing capacitor in the radio's power supply.

Through a 30 pin integrated into there stereo.

 

Hmmm, I am thinking about your theory.  I don't have all power issues with anything except the radio, you may be right!

 

Thanks for the idea. 

Cole: I feel your pain.  It can be a bear tracking down minor electrical issues.  In fact we were here until midnight last night tracking down a weird backfeed issue in a Spyder which turned out to simply be a bad 1157 socket in the taillights... go figure.

 

Since your head unit is losing settings I'd look at the yellow power wire (it is constant power) and start tracing back from there.  Also, from my experience, a voltage spike is often time translated as a "pop" through the speakers.

 

For what it's worth, we have seen a bunch of alternators (even new "Bosch" labeled units) that have been outsourced to China and they have changed the gauge of several of the internal regulator wires from (I believe) 16 ga to 24 ga and the internal regs can start to act crazy before failing.  Older remanned units seem to be better, or you can go to places like Century Dist.  Roger from Century modifies new units to correct this short coming.

Thanks for the info, Carey!

Yes Carey, thanks for the great inside info!  I hope it's not something as obscure as a bulb socket.  I do wonder about those cheap alternators!