Gadgetory

well I can hardly think of anything more frustrating than a battery in your car that's dead every morning and the frustrating part is what's causing it this so-called parasitic loss or phantom draw is frustrating to track down because unless it's caused by something visible like a light bulb how do you spot it but I can show you some simple tips to track it down very quickly that you're likely gonna need at some point with today's heavily electrical and electronic cars now the first thing you want to do before you start this process is to make sure you've got a good battery state good charge and since the car's been crapping out I bet you've already invested in a battery charger so hook it up overnight let it charge up the battery before we get started you should see good numbers on the display next make sure the car is not actually drawing any power obviously it got to be switched off the key is out doors are closed and no lights are on if some of those take a moment because of internal timers now set up your meter for a test like this I want you to put the black cable that came with it into the port called common and the red test lead goes in the one that will typically say 10 amps 10 a or 10 a DC like this one because that's the kind of test we're gonna be doing then turn your meter on and go to the 10 amp DC position on its dial now it's time to attach your meter if you've got a charger connected to the battery now you want to pull it off now you want to put your positive terminal back on make sure the car has that on and tighten so positive is back on negative stays off then your meter is put in line between the cable for negative and the terminal for negative now most clips are only big enough to go around your cable getting around that terminal on the batteries asking a lot so just hold your connector there and take a look at the reading on the meter what you want to see is a number that is in the milliamp say very low number 30 40 maybe 50 at most it's okay the batteries not gonna die very soon with that little bit of trickle but when I see what I've got here nearly two and a half amps that's a dramatically bigger draw and that's gonna kill my battery overnight now that I verified I've got a draw I need to go into the car to look for it but still see the meter operating so get some kind of a clamp like one of these and make sure you've got both of your leads from your meter connected to the battery so you can be hands-free this is important when you've got your meter hooked up like this do not start the car turn on the headlights or do anything like that leave the car dead or you're gonna fry that meter and who knows what else put this meter up in the windshield where you can see it and then let's go around the driver's door okay now with our meter set up where I can see it up on the windshield I go down to the fuse box by the way some cars have several scattered around the vehicle check the owners manual luckily here on the Boxster we just have one to deal with now it's just a very simple process just start pulling each fuse one at a time look at the meter see if it drops your draw down where it should be and if not put the fuse back in go on to the next one it's tedious but it's easy it cost you nothing okay I've been pulling fuses for a few minutes here getting no results and then all of a sudden I found one that did look at that nice low current reading that's c3 on this car so I grabbed a little fuse map and see what it says and it tells me that's basically interior locking and lights so I've discovered the system that is doing the draw now from here it's going to be up to you all if you want to have it fixed or whether you think you can look around and find out what the problem is if you do want to try and go further and diagnose it there are four major areas to look at is there a motor that's running when it shouldn't is there a light staying on when it shouldn't is there a switch that's causing one of those to stay on when it shouldn't or is there a wire going to one of those things that I've discovered that it's frayed or damaged that's arcing out against some piece of metal in the car now whether you're gonna fix the problem you've identified or take it to a shop and get it done you really accomplished two things just now with almost no effort and no cost you've got peace of mind about what the problem really is and secondly you just found an easy way to buy yourself some time if you can live without the system but this fuse used to power up you can leave it out and now your car is not going to discharge until you get the time and/or money to get it fixed