Parasitic battery draw. Could use some ideas.

Hey guys. 6 cyl 2000 accord here.

2 days ago we had a lot of rain, parked the car at work, had a dead battery by morning, jumped it and drove home. Battery was old so I went and got a new one. Drove home, it sat for about 5 hours, started and drove to work. At the end of the 10 hour shift it was dead again.

Alternator seems fine, I used fluke and this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdIKNnwEjIs to test and saw that I had 4.7 amp draw on the battery. Pulled all the fuses under the hood and on both sides. Pulled all the plugs from both multi meters and a bunch under the hood. Unhooked the stereo and I was reading 4.7A the whole time. Gonna try to unhook my remote started after work tomorrow, but I don't think it's the problem, seeing how everything on it still works.

Does anyone by any chance have any other ideas what/where I could test?

Thanks in advance, starting to lose my mind with this thing.

You sure u unplugged every fuse? With the multimeter on battery keep pulling till it doesn't have a draw. Sounds a bit wierd that you pulled every fuse and it was still drawing. Start pulling the under hood fuses first and double check if you can.
Good luck

Sometimes a ground fault can be the problem.

FNCONE said:

You sure u unplugged every fuse? With the multimeter on battery keep pulling till it doesn't have a draw. Sounds a bit wierd that you pulled every fuse and it was still drawing. Start pulling the under hood fuses first and double check if you can.
Good luck

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Yeah I have. Unplugged every fuse, every plug on the multiplex, alternator with multimiter plugged in. The only clue that I have is when I unplug the main battery fuse 100 amp one with screws holding it down, it goes away. So it makes me think that it has to be something on a circuit after the fuse box, but besides that I have nothing to work with.

Update: disconnected the 2 leads from the fuse box under the hood today. And completed the circuit between just the 2 of them, instead of the 2 and the other 2 in the fuse box, that the 100 amp battery fuse connects. Still showing the draw of ~4.8 amps, so I am thinking it has to be something wired directly to the battery. Gonna check around the ignition switch and the remote starter tomorrow and look for any positive leads that might be somehow shorted/grounded to the frame.

Also weird: when I just have the circuit under the hood and disconnect the alternator lead, the draw goes away. However it shows it even on my spare/good alternator. And when I hook up the rest of the car, meaning the fuse box in to the circuit. The draw no longer goes away when I unplug the alternator lead... I hate electrical stuff so very much.

Take the positive lead off the alternator. Does it go away?

Nam1911a1 said:

Take the positive lead off the alternator. Does it go away?

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It doesn't if I have the fuse box in the circuit. So in the default setting, however if I bypass the box by taking the 2 leads going in to the 100 amp fuse off and connecting them, it does go away when pos lead is disconnected. But it does the same thing with my spare alternator that I know is good, so I am not sure what to think there.

Remove the alternator fuse.

Remove the positive lug off the alternator.

Get a piece of wire and connect it to your alternator positive lug and connect the other end to your battery positive terminal.


This will isolate the problem if it is the factory lead from the battery to alternator. If the problem goes away than there is ground fault in the factory alternator lead.

Nam1911a1 said:

Remove the alternator fuse.

Remove the positive lug off the alternator.

Get a piece of wire and connect it to your alternator positive lug and connect the other end to your battery positive terminal.


This will isolate the problem if it is the factory lead from the battery to alternator. If the problem goes away than there is ground fault in the factory alternator lead.

Click to expand...

Good idea, I'll try that tomorrow thank you!

After trying everything I could think of in the last 2 days, I got the parasitic draw to go away when I unplug the alternator and the 50amp main fuse at the same time, but not one at a time. Gonna try find the wiring diagram for v6 today and see what 50amp fuse goes to to try narrow it down some more. Will definitely try the wire thing though, to check for a bad ground. Thank you again.

My idea is not to check for a bad ground. But rather to check if there is a break in the insulation of the wire and if the positive lead is grounding out somewhere.

Basically fully isolating the problem to the wire from the alternator to the battery. (One of the big three electrical upgrades)