Originally Posted by kingkub57
It appears that this dealer has never heard of a draw test ???? To check how much of a amp draw you have on the system while off, and then narrowing it down to a specific area or module or what ever may be staying on, thus finding the problem and fixing it. I would be speaking to the service manager to get a tech that knows electrical to work on the car, thats if they have one ????
Ya beat me to it. This is NOT a hard thing to find. Within five minutes, the tech should have a current reading to go by.
1) If he sees no current, then the problem is intermittent (and yes, that can be hard to deal with, but the opening post makes it sound like there is NOTHING intermittent about this.)
2) If he sees current, the thing to do is to start pulling fuses until the culprit is found. Once we find the fuse that is carrying the current, it's then a job of identifying what that fuse powers.
If the battery REALLY DOES become THAT discharged in such a sort period of time, this should be easy to isolate.
But most dealerships and independent shops are totally incapable of handling this job. I work at a Motorola service facility - we get cars in all the time that dealers say are simply impossible to repair. Most mechanics don't even know what an ammeter is, OR how to use it. I have actually watched one poor ignoramous try to trace current flow wth a voltmeter.
We usually have the culprit isolated in 1/2 hour. Usually, the problem IS with the equipment added after the factory (our customers are mostly police and fire departments with very heavily modded vehicles). BUT, once in a while, we isolate it to a factory electronic assembly or module somewhere. When this happens, I or the service manager will call the dealer and inform them what module has to be replaced. They usually listen and replace the module and the problem is solved.
Oh, and often, (I didn't say always) the "Module" is an odd device found in most cars.... called the alternator.
But, alas, electronic/electrical troubleshooting is not taught anywhere anymore. This just gets to me... in a world where there is more electronics than ever, no one is learning ABOUT electronics anymore - anyone going for a technical education goes into I.T.
Perhaps if the role of the electronic technician didn't offer an average pay of $14 an hour....
we could get someone to learn. But no, that can't be it, right?