My jeep is dead

[martin_metal_88]

Actually your battery should love lower temp as electricity travel better under cold temp. If it was sitting not plugged and some power is gone, just swap it you might have found the issue.
I hope you are now back on your feet and can get a better battery

 

[jeeper4life]

Well the battery was sitting at 12.4 when I left it one night, unplugged, just sitting there. I checked it the next day and it had dropped to 12.2 with nothing hooked up too it. Thats not normal right? I hooked the battery up drove it to the store for something, it was still at 12.2 when i got back and shut it off. I left it hooked up over night in the garage and checked it again, it probably sat for 12 hours hooked up to the Jeep like it normally would be and it had dropped to 12.0. So the battery is probably bad for starters right? Now all this took place after the vehicle was jumped after sitting for 3 days outside and "charged" back up.

 

[Cherrie]

Yea it's probably not the alternator because the battery didn't drop after you used it. So alternator is putting out.

 

[jeeper4life]

Pretty much a year later and I'm having this issue again. I replaced the battery, well actually the auto parts store did, for free because I guess it was under warranty. Now my question is, if I had drain on the battery wouldn't it of killed the battery before hand? Am I just getting cheap batteries? Or is it something that is draining the battery so slow that it takes a year to kill it off? The jeep hasn't blown a power door lock fuse in a while, however the rear tailgate will act up up times. As far as not wanting to unlock the first time.

 

[profdlp]

I skimmed through the thread, so forgive me if this was already asked and I missed it. I'm assuming your alternator and charging system has been given a clean bill of health.

Have you added any aftermarket electric items like a stereo, amp, auxiliary lights, etc.? If so, I would start there. One bad splice or a wire you tucked away which has managed to ground itself due to rubbing over time could do it.

If that is not it, what about trying to remove fuses for stuff and see if the drain stops? It's a pain, but if you are getting a measurable voltage drop overnight, by removing items from the list of possible suspects you might be able to zero in on the problem. Keep a log of which fuses you have tried and keep going night after night until the time you pull a fuse, wait overnight, then find out the problem stopped. Bingo. You can save time by pulling half of them on the first night. If the problem stops, it's one of them. If not, it's in the other half. Doing it this way can narrow it down from weeks for thirty fuses to a few days.

Electrical problems suck. A CPO I had in nuke school liked to mention that at least mechanical problems made noise to tell you where the problem was. Electrical stuff liked to screw you over silently. I had a building years ago where a circuit breaker was tripping overnight about 3-4 times a week. We called in experts galore with expensive equipment who couldn't find diddly-squat. I used the 50-50 method above and disconnected half the stuff on that circuit every night for two weeks and nothing tripped. I then reconnected half the stuff in the other half and -boom - back again. Eventually it was traced to an exit sign which had a built in battery in case of power failure. There was something in the battery charging system which was shorted out and when the battery needed to charge it took the whole circuit out with it.

 

[jeeper4life]

I skimmed through the thread, so forgive me if this was already asked and I missed it. I'm assuming your alternator and charging system has been given a clean bill of health.

Have you added any aftermarket electric items like a stereo, amp, auxiliary lights, etc.? If so, I would start there. One bad splice or a wire you tucked away which has managed to ground itself due to rubbing over time could do it.

If that is not it, what about trying to remove fuses for stuff and see if the drain stops? It's a pain, but if you are getting a measurable voltage drop overnight, by removing items from the list of possible suspects you might be able to zero in on the problem. Keep a log of which fuses you have tried and keep going night after night until the time you pull a fuse, wait overnight, then find out the problem stopped. Bingo. You can save time by pulling half of them on the first night. If the problem stops, it's one of them. If not, it's in the other half. Doing it this way can narrow it down from weeks for thirty fuses to a few days.

Electrical problems suck. A CPO I had in nuke school liked to mention that at least mechanical problems made noise to tell you where the problem was. Electrical stuff liked to screw you over silently. I had a building years ago where a circuit breaker was tripping overnight about 3-4 times a week. We called in experts galore with expensive equipment who couldn't find diddly-squat. I used the 50-50 method above and disconnected half the stuff on that circuit every night for two weeks and nothing tripped. I then reconnected half the stuff in the other half and -boom - back again. Eventually it was traced to an exit sign which had a built in battery in case of power failure. There was something in the battery charging system which was shorted out and when the battery needed to charge it took the whole circuit out with it.

rock on man, that sounds like a good way to test things, I will have to give that a try and report back..:favorites13:

 

[profdlp]

Good luck to you!

I'm not an expert on car electrical systems but I worked with building electrical problems for nearly twenty years. With buildings, you might end up having to cut holes in the wall or climb around in the ceiling, but I think that might be easier in the long run than tracking down a vehicle electrical problem. :Stupid Me:

 

[jeeper4life]

Well night one, I left it at 12.23 volts and this morning it read 11.29 volts. I hope I'm not getting false readings from a bad battery. I'm kinda wondering if should get a fresh new battery and start from there..

 

[profdlp]

Does it charge right back up? What about when it is completely disconnected? Do you see the same type of voltage drop then?

 

[jeeper4life]

Does it charge right back up? What about when it is completely disconnected? Do you see the same type of voltage drop then?

I'm doing that tonight, I have it totally unhooked.. should know by tomorrow morning..

 

[jeeper4life]

Also I think I stated in this thread in the past I have rear tailgate issues every now and then. The rear glass will always pop open but the tailgate won't unlock on the first try, gotta hit the unlock button again and it then most of the time will open. I thought I remember reading something grounds in the rear door, This rusty thing isn't any type of ground is it? It couldn't be causing any electrical issues could it since it surrounds that sensor type deal?

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It just seems to have ALOT of surface rust on it while everything else is so clean back there..

 

[profdlp]

I'd try cleaning it up and would inspect the wiring very closely. If possible, even disconnect anything at that end from the electrical system. Something like a loose wire could cause it to be slowly grounding (the same way lightning works) and draining your battery. A higher potential (the + terminal) will always seek something of lower potential (the - terminal, or any ground).

Some marriages work that way, too. (I'm single, BTW, so that's not a biographical detail in my case.) :signs6:

Anyway, a bad connection in your latch could be doing it. Unfortunately, so could practically anything else...

The thing I mentioned a couple posts back where you disconnect stuff until the problem goes away is the only way I know for sure to diagnose this type of thing. I had a breaker tripping in my apartment a few years back which turned out to be a faulty plug on a lamp. The only way I found it, what with all the wires being hidden behind the walls, was to unplug everything, then plug stuff back in one at a time until it tripped again. When it did, I knew the last thing I plugged in was the culprit. When it comes to vehicles, there is no practical way to check ALL of the wiring. Just keep trying to narrow it down until you know where the problem is.

And like you mentioned earlier, maybe you've just had the bad luck of getting two dud batteries in a row and there is actually nothing wrong with the Jeep at all... :mfr_omg:

 

[jeeper4life]

Ok I will check it out after work tonight. The battery was left unhook at 12.23 volts last night and is 12.18 this morning. The last one in it dropped from 12 to 9 volts so I know the current one is still somewhat decent.

 

[profdlp]

A .05V drop overnight does not sound like much to me. Until proven otherwise I'd look beyond the battery as the source of the problem. The rest of it is like playing Twenty Questions: Is it here? Y/N, over and over until you can get a definite "Yes".

 

[jeeper4life]

Well I unplugged everything in the rear tailgate last night and let it sit, everything hooked up just nothing in the tailgate and when I left it I got 12.32 and this morning I checked it and got 12.02. I'm thinking I'm gonna hook everything back up in the tailgate and leave the battery hooked up see if it drops to that tomorrow morning..

 

[profdlp]

I should have caught this yesterday, but that voltage may be low to begin with. I know that when I monitor mine using my Garmin Mechanic it's right around 14.5V. People who use Scangauge have reported the same thing. Now before you jump to any conclusions, keep in mind that those numbers are when the Jeeps are running, which might explain the difference. (Also keep in mind that while I have experience with troubleshooting, very little of it involves vehicles.)

On the other hand, if you reconnect the tailgate stuff and it drops overnight by WAY more than it did last night when it was disconnected, you might be onto something.