battery drain

2003 OLDSMOBILE ALERO
130,000 MILES • 2.1L • 4 CYL • 2WD • AUTOMATIC
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MR GRANT
  • MEMBER
  • 1 POST
battery went dead overnight. I trickle charged it over 8 hours trickle charger said it was full. digital reader had it at 11.25 volts. I checked for a battery drain and it has 1.16 amps. is that an amount that I have to hunt down or is it possibly a bad battery.
Jun 13, 2020 at 7:03 AM
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ASEMASTER6371
  • ASE Certified Mechanic
  • 52,796 POSTS
  • ASE Certified Mechanic
Good morning,

The battery is dead. 11.25 is nothing. The battery needs to be 12.4 to 12.6 for all the systems to come alive.

I attached a guide for you for the battery draining overnight.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/car-battery-load-test

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-replace-a-car-battery

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/car-battery-dead-overnight

Roy
Jun 13, 2020 at 7:47 AM
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DANNY L
  • ASE Certified Mechanic
  • 5,648 POSTS
  • ASE Certified Mechanic
Hello, I'm Danny.

First thing you should do is have the battery load tested.This will determine if the battery can or will hold a charge. Most auto parts stores will do that for free.Here is a tutorial showing what is involved:

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/car-battery-load-test

The second thing you can do involves a test light.Disconnect the negative battery cable and install the test light between the negative battery clamp and the negative battery terminal.The test light should be illuminated.Certain things like clocks will keep the light illuminated but you can then start pulling fuses out one at a time.When the test light gets noticeably dimmer you will have then found the circuit that is causing the drain.Hope this helps and thanks for using 2CarPros.
Jun 13, 2020 at 7:52 AM
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