Battery Problems

[uscharalph]

I ran my battery down a little on Sunday tailgating at the USC scrimmage. The car was kind of hard starting on Monday, then this morning nothing. I got a jump start from a neighbor and drove to the PO's mechanic. They had replaced the battery in 11/2003 and the battery was still under warranty. He was pretty convinced it isn't the alternator and told me these cars are pretty hard on batteries.

[632 Regal]

you will see huh?

Hopefully thats all it was, sometimes the alternators can self short through the diodes and drain it too...sure you have everything off? Dumb question but its a question for you.

[uscharalph]

you will see huh?

Hopefully thats all it was, sometimes the alternators can self short through the diodes and drain it too...sure you have everything off? Dumb question but its a question for you.

He's charging the battery as we speak. He said he'd check to see if anything's draining the battery. Just got to wait and see what he comes up with.

I know everything was off. The only thing I can think of that are still powered after I tun the key off are the glovebox flashlight (?) and sometimes I here some noise from the cd changer in the trunk. Last night I pulled the magazine out of it. Those 2 things along with whatever still draws current ?

[632 Regal]

there always will be a tiny draw, dont remember the number but they claim it can drain the battery in a couple months or something like that, not overnight.

[uscharalph]

So the mechanic said they charged it and can't really find anything wrong. I'm off to pick it up now and we'll see how it does.

[uscharalph]

So I picked up the car and it started right up. The notes on the N/C invoice:

CHARGE BATTERY--LOAD TEST--GOOD AT THIS TIME
CHECK FOR DRAIN--NONE AT THIS TIME
CHECK ALT. OUTPUT--GOOD AT THIS TIME

So I guess I'll just see how it goes. I did find one small thing that might cause some drain (It's funny it didn't come up in the CHECK FOR DRAIN test). My friend had popped off the headrest button when he was trying to move the seat up. He put it on wrong when he put it back and I kept hearing a little thump thump every fiv-ten seconds. The headrest must have been attempting to move and had already gone all they way. How much drain could this cause? It couldn't be much if it didn't show up in the drain test.