What should be resistance in ohms between DISCONNECTED battery cables?

MONTYNTWRK

MEMBER
2002 NISSAN ALTIMA
2.5L
4 CYL
FWD
AUTOMATIC
92,700 MILES

I measured resistance between disconnected battery cables after seeing a big drop in battery voltage. Shouldn't the resistance be infinite or very large, in the many megohm area?

Thursday, July 2nd, 2015 AT 5:33 AM

5 Replies

HMAC300

MECHANIC
48,601 POSTS

A battery cable should be 0 ohms resistance from one end to the other. Or very close to it.

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Thursday, July 2nd, 2015 AT 7:13 AM

MONTYNTWRK

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7 POSTS

I meant BETWEEN the disconnected positive cable and the disconnected negative cable, NOT within each cable.

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Sunday, July 5th, 2015 AT 4:19 AM

HMAC300

MECHANIC
48,601 POSTS

No idea on that one, we never test for that because when you do that you are going through modules so you pick up resistance from those. Only a manufacturer might know that which they do not release.

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Sunday, July 5th, 2015 AT 8:11 AM

MONTYNTWRK

MEMBER
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Thanks anyway. Clearly, it should be a lot greater than 4 ohms. Four ohms is like a short to ground.(There is such a thing as a short to voltage, but this is NOT that.) Imagine a battery seeing 4 ohms when the key is ON.

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Tuesday, July 7th, 2015 AT 4:48 AM

HMAC300

MECHANIC
48,601 POSTS

Because of the electronics on a car there is ALWAYS a draw on the battery due to keeping memories alive which cannot be turned off. Ohm measurement like you are talking about is never taken cause we just fix the darn things we aren't engineers.