Hey all…I wanna know if you can figure this out. I just replace my car battery last week with a brand new Die Hard Silver. Just last night…I found out that there was no juice left!! HOw so?? Can it be the weather?? I left the car sitting in my garage for 3 days. Could it be one defective battery I just bought? I also notice that the fan started running every time I shut off the engine. Could this be draining my battery? Is my generator not working properly??
I’m confused…please help!
first off, charge the battery back up.
now, use a multimeter or voltmeter to measure the voltage of the battery. It should be around 12volts.
next, turn the car on. Again, use the voltmeter to measure the voltage of the system. This time, it should read about 14 volts.
If you got 12volts the first time, and 14volts the second time, then your alternator should be just fine. If you got 12 volts both times, then your alternator is shot and needs to be replaced.
If you find the alternator to be good then it could be one of a couple different things.
-the battery could have just been a bad battery. Stuff like that happens. I replaced my mom’s alternator w/ one from kragen, and it didn’t work at all! So, just cause its new, doesn’t mean 100% that it works.
-also you could have some type of excess drain on the battery. With the car off you can use a multimeter to measure the amperage that is being drawn off the battery. compare the amperage on your car (car off, no lights or anything on) to the amperage of another car. If your amperage is considerably higher, then you may have some type of short or something that is drawing extra power even when the car is not on.
Other than that i can’t be of any more help to you. There may be other reasons why your battery isn’t working, but i dont know of any. And if you dont have a multimeter you can go to your local kragen, pepboys, autozone… type place and they will test your battery and charging system for free.
good luck
this is what exactly happens to my car every few weeks. I’m pretty sure its the condenser fan cause it comes on after the car has been running and it won’t turn off, thus causing it to drain the whole battery. So i’m clueless right now but it could be a sensor that is dirty.