On Aug 17, 4:40*pm, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
> woger151 > wrote:
> >Last weekend my wife reported that the battery was dead in our 2000
> >Honda Accord V6.
>
> >I charged battery overnight; started fine after I put it back in.
> >Looked for drains with a multimeter; after a few minutes, current went
> >down to 12 mA, which AFAICT means there's no way it could empty the
> >battery. (Car had been parked at most a couple days, and it's pretty
> >warm here.)
>
> >After getting some reasonable replies in a different thread here, I
> >took it to Advance Auto Parts and had it tested for free. Everything
> >checked out fine.
>
> >Anyone have any ideas? I know that electrical issues can be
> >notoriously hard to diagnose. Is it possible there's something about
> >the alternator or the rest of the car's electrical system that the
> >test at Advance would have missed? (The test is broken down into a few
> >parts (battery, starter, charging system), all reporting normal.)
>
> 1. Your wife left the dome light on and didn't tell you.

Could be, but she swears she didn't. She'd be aware of that because
one of us did that before.

>
> 2. Your teenage daughter has been making out with her boyfriend
> * *in the car in the garage with the radio on full blast to hide the
> * *noise.

Girls too young for that.

:-)

>
> 3. Something intermittent is coming on, like a faulty latch that sometimes
> * *doesn't close the glovebox completely.

Yeah, that's what I'm worried about cuz it sounds like a b*tch to
diagnose.

>
> >Also, if there was something seriously wrong with the alternator or
> >battery, I assume I'd be getting dead batteries more frequently. We
> >had a dead battery quite a while back, probably due to cab light being
> >left on. After that, last spring the alternator went bad. Had that
> >replaced. A couple weeks after that, left it at the airport for about
> >5 days; dead when we got back. Had it jumped. It's been fine until
> >last weekend. THat's a pretty big gap (early May to mid August).
>
> A popular failure mode is for the alternator diodes to fail and the battery
> to discharge through the alternator when the car is parked. *But if this
> had been the case, you'd have seen it on the ammeter.
> --scott
>
> --
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>
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