Thanks in advance!
my truck didn't start on Monday but worked when I got a jump, then I drove about 45min alternating in traffic/flowing highway to work. About 3-4hrs later, battery was dead again. I got a new battery that same day and experienced no problems on Tuesday. Then today, the car didn't start initially. I tried twice and no luck (but the second time was better than the first... they were back to back attempts). Two hours later, the car starts so I take it to the alternator shop. Guy checks it out and tells me it's not the alternator (batt measured 12v with engine off, 13.6v with engine on, didn't change when turning on stuff).
So what's draining the battery? My plan was to see if there was a parasitic draw on the battery so I unplugged the positive terminal of the battery and put the multimeter in series (red probe on + battery terminal, black probe on the cable). The multimeter went kaput and from what I understand, it means that there is a short.
I got another multimeter and decided to test for a short. I unplugged both battery terminals and set the multimeter to the setting that says (OHM X 1K). When I tough the probes one way to the car cables, the needle didn't move. When I switched the probes around, the needle moved to about the 0.7 mark (700Ohm) then slowly made itself to about the 1,700ohm mark.
What does this mean?! is there a short or not? I thought normal readings were 150-200ohms... also I'm stupidly bad with circuits.
Pretty sure I did something wrong along the way.
my truck didn't start on Monday but worked when I got a jump, then I drove about 45min alternating in traffic/flowing highway to work. About 3-4hrs later, battery was dead again. I got a new battery that same day and experienced no problems on Tuesday. Then today, the car didn't start initially. I tried twice and no luck (but the second time was better than the first... they were back to back attempts). Two hours later, the car starts so I take it to the alternator shop. Guy checks it out and tells me it's not the alternator (batt measured 12v with engine off, 13.6v with engine on, didn't change when turning on stuff).
So what's draining the battery? My plan was to see if there was a parasitic draw on the battery so I unplugged the positive terminal of the battery and put the multimeter in series (red probe on + battery terminal, black probe on the cable). The multimeter went kaput and from what I understand, it means that there is a short.
I got another multimeter and decided to test for a short. I unplugged both battery terminals and set the multimeter to the setting that says (OHM X 1K). When I tough the probes one way to the car cables, the needle didn't move. When I switched the probes around, the needle moved to about the 0.7 mark (700Ohm) then slowly made itself to about the 1,700ohm mark.
What does this mean?! is there a short or not? I thought normal readings were 150-200ohms... also I'm stupidly bad with circuits.
Pretty sure I did something wrong along the way.
