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Parasitic Draw 2019 Ram 1500 limited

allsopwy

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I've been reading a bunch of old posts and not really getting anywhere so i'm finally making my own. The long story is, my dad borrowed my truck about two months ago. Within a few hours of him returning the truck, its dead. (I don't think this is related and just a wild coincidence but just in case i am mentioning it.) The only thing he noted was he messed with the rear view mirror and thought it was very stiff and he may have broke some wires loose trying to get it to turn. But this is just where the fun begins, i took it to AutoZone to test the battery about 3 times in the next week. Every time it came back as a good battery. So In my head that meant battery is good, i can jump it so couldn't be a starter issues. I replaced the alternator. Everything is great for about a week. Dead again. Took it to my local dealership, they say my battery is bad. Only getting about half my CCA that its rated for. So i replace that. Again, good for about a week no problems. Then i go to drive and its dead. Jump it, drive about an hour to class. I stopped at the gas station probably less than 3 minutes of off time, and its dead again. I'm mostly mentioning this part to show how fast it dies sometimes. Sometimes it starts for a couple of days no issue, sometimes it can be dead within 15 minutes. Anyways, take it to the shop again, at this point i'm convinced its the starter. So i have them replace the starter. AGAIN no problems for about a week or two, then this time its sub 9 volts on the dash and making weird noises when i try to start it. I've seen some other posts say its like a loud pop from the front speaker. So its got to be parasitic draw from somewhere right? I took it back to the dealership and they've had it for about 9 days and about a whole 3 hours of diagnostics charged to me. now and have sent me 3 different texts that were the equivalent of we haven't even bothered looking at it today. They checked a RFH module in the back seat as they said that could be the problem, checked out fine. They have not really done anything else except tell me that they did "an all day amp draw test and there was no draw" I'm beyond frustrated at this point. I'm planning on picking it up today and any kind of insight on this issue as i try to tackle it myself would be greatly appreciated.


TLDR I have an electrical problem that leads to me not being able to start, Battery/ Attestator / starter are brand new. Dodge dealership are giving me the run around and milking me out of money with no end date in sight. I have just enough experience and schooling with electricity to get myself frustrated and confused, any help or ideas would be appreciated.

PS: Aside from the rear view mirror being potentially messed with, i've had a notification pop up from time to time about servicing the air ride suspension but it goes away within 30 seconds and i never paid attention to it. This is just an anomaly that i figured was worth mentioning. Its not necessarily new, i think it started almost ay ear ago.
 
This was my saga.
My battery drain was caused by the electronics not shutting down completely.

This started while I was down in Florida for x-mas vacation.
Barely turning over one morning, replaced battery even tho auto-zone said it was OK. Good for several days, got home in one piece.
Then a dead battery again, jumped, fine for couple days and then dead again.

I used a keep-alive power supply to see what was going on.
Truck would wind down to pulling 1.4 amps, then after few minutes it would start to ramp back up, 3.4 amps then 5.5 then 6.6 and back down to 1.4 amps.
This went on thru the night, no wonder my battery was going flat.
The spec. calls for a maximum current draw of 50 milli-amps after a set time.

Long story short...
In my case, the problem went away after cleaning ground connection G2A.
It did not look corroded, had just a minor grayish film on the lugs, cleaned it thoroughly, applied silver conductive grease and been good so far.
This was in January 2022.

edit:
What led me to the G2A, was that I measured 0.1 volts from the negative battery post to the fender ground stud.
That`s a lot of drop on such a short run.
 
Of course not.
Cut that guy some slack, could be a pro, he is using a 12 dollar multi meter after all LOL.
Unfortunately this is the way so much bad information is put out. His process is good on an older vehicle, not on anything we would be talking about. Vehicles today can take up to an hour to go to "sleep", pulling fuses and reinstalling can "wake up" modules, prolonging the diagnostics. Voltage drop across a fuse would do the same and not "wake up" modules.
 
Unfortunately this is the way so much bad information is put out. His process is good on an older vehicle, not on anything we would be talking about. Vehicles today can take up to an hour to go to "sleep", pulling fuses and reinstalling can "wake up" modules, prolonging the diagnostics. Voltage drop across a fuse would do the same and not "wake up" modules.
Some of us know that.
He is doing his best to create content, pretty well covers the basics.
Accurate measurements, maybe not so much.
Entertaining none the less.

Cheers.
 

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