Truck drains its battery faster than I think it should

NATE01

MEMBER
2004 CHEVROLET SILVERADO
6 CYL
2WD
AUTOMATIC
16,700 MILES

My truck drains its battery faster than I think it should. I don't drive it daily, and if you let it sit more than about 2 days, there won't be enough voltage in the battery for the truck to start. (Especially in cold weather) The battery was new 4 months ago. I got a load tester and the battery tested fine, I also had the alternator bench tested and it put out 14.5-14.8 volts and the diodes were okay.

Today I pulled fuses with the ignition switch off to see if any of them drew amps and found four fuses that did:

Radio- 0.63amps
IPC/DIC- 0.4
TBC BATT- 0.06
HVAC/ECAS- 0.02

Is there any reason that the radio is drawing 0.63 amps? There is some kind of security feature on it, and a red light that blinks all the time, might that be the problem and is there anyway to turn that off?

1 Reply

SQM

MECHANIC
6,383 POSTS

Hello,

The radio should not have that high of a parasitic draw. Typically, a radio has 3 to 5 milliamps of draw.
It likely has internal wiring malfunction that is creating the excess amount of draw. If this is an aftermarket radio unit, it is more than likely the issue. Just about all of the aftermarket system that has security feature will drain the battery significantly faster than anything that is factory equipped.

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

I have attached the typical draw amount for various equipment.

Please let me know of any questions.
Thank you.

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