'01 Pathfinder. Battery drained to zero. The battery is only a 4 ~ 5 months old. Everything has been working fine. Didn't leave any lights on. (That's one thing I like about the Path it shuts everything off after a while anyways).
Swapped out with a truck battery rather than wait for a jump and starts fine. Checked to see that dome lights shut off - they do. I have led's in vanity mirrors, map, domes, & third tail light only. Even if one of those had been on I've left the car sitting for longer than this and it will start up (drove it just yesterday and this morning unlocked / relocked to grab something out of car - remote worked only a few hours before I went to drive).
Put dead battery on a CTEK 7002 charger so it will probably take 12 hours or so to charge to full.
Just wondering what the heck could have drained the battery all of a sudden. (I did switch the hatch dome light to manual off then back on about 4 days ago, and left switch in middle position, and checked to see that it goes off when I use remote and it did / does).
Going to take it for a test drive now and will also see if scan tool has anything to add.
Battery Drained to Zero
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VStar650CL
- Technical Expert
- Posts: 11927
- Joined: Thu Nov 12, 2020 1:25 pm
- Car: 2013 Nissan Altima 2.5 SL
2004 Nissan Altima 2.5 S
Re: Battery Drained to Zero
The two most likely culprits are the same on anything Nissan (and most other makes), the radio battery supply or a bad field/diode in the alternator. Put an ammeter on the negative cable and wait half an hour, if it shows a draw more than about 40mA then pull the alternator field fuse and see if it goes away. If not, pull the battery fuse for the audio unit and see if that does it. If it's drawing less than 40mA after 30 minutes then your problem isn't a draw.
Re: Battery Drained to Zero
Thank you, I would never have known where to start.
I looked through the FSM EL but haven’t yet located the “alternator field fuse”.
When you say ‘ammeter’ are you saying use a sensitive ‘clamp’ DC current sensor? Or use a DVM with say a 200ma setting in series? (ie - remove neg bat cable and connect DVM between battery and loose neg cable to, hopefully, pass current to computer for about a ½ hour to then read amp draw later). Or, maybe when I find the alternator fuse I could pull it and place the ammeter in the fuse sockets for a measurement (?)
Started Path this morning & let it idle for about 4 minutes while I checked running voltage = 14v. After shutting off battery measured 12v. That’s 1 volt up from before start / idle fwiw. Not a valid test, but makes me lean towards parasitic draw. (Of course the whole time I was standing in between a 3 foot space of two car bumpers and only noticed later I had left it in Drive, running, with parking brake on - too many tasks this weekend, scatter brained right now).
My pos Fluke only measures AC amps so I might need to find a cheap DC clamp meter online that is sensitive enough. Or maybe, because I have two batteries to play with, I could pull fuse(s) overnight and check any volt drop next morning (?)
I looked through the FSM EL but haven’t yet located the “alternator field fuse”.
When you say ‘ammeter’ are you saying use a sensitive ‘clamp’ DC current sensor? Or use a DVM with say a 200ma setting in series? (ie - remove neg bat cable and connect DVM between battery and loose neg cable to, hopefully, pass current to computer for about a ½ hour to then read amp draw later). Or, maybe when I find the alternator fuse I could pull it and place the ammeter in the fuse sockets for a measurement (?)
Started Path this morning & let it idle for about 4 minutes while I checked running voltage = 14v. After shutting off battery measured 12v. That’s 1 volt up from before start / idle fwiw. Not a valid test, but makes me lean towards parasitic draw. (Of course the whole time I was standing in between a 3 foot space of two car bumpers and only noticed later I had left it in Drive, running, with parking brake on - too many tasks this weekend, scatter brained right now).
My pos Fluke only measures AC amps so I might need to find a cheap DC clamp meter online that is sensitive enough. Or maybe, because I have two batteries to play with, I could pull fuse(s) overnight and check any volt drop next morning (?)
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VStar650CL
- Technical Expert
- Posts: 11927
- Joined: Thu Nov 12, 2020 1:25 pm
- Car: 2013 Nissan Altima 2.5 SL
2004 Nissan Altima 2.5 S
Re: Battery Drained to Zero
Even cheap multimeters these days usually have a DC ammeter built in, this $7 one from Harbor Freight does:
https://www.harborfreight.com/electrica ... 59434.html
Just hook it up in series with the ground cable, nothing fancy needed. Even the 10A setting will be sensitive enough to detect a draw above 40mA.
The alternator won't be found in the EL section, it's in Starting and Charging on SC-21. The field fuse is the 7.5A one connected straight to the Fuse & Relay box:
https://www.nicoclub.com/service-manual ... 1%2Fsc.pdf
https://www.harborfreight.com/electrica ... 59434.html
Just hook it up in series with the ground cable, nothing fancy needed. Even the 10A setting will be sensitive enough to detect a draw above 40mA.
The alternator won't be found in the EL section, it's in Starting and Charging on SC-21. The field fuse is the 7.5A one connected straight to the Fuse & Relay box:
https://www.nicoclub.com/service-manual ... 1%2Fsc.pdf