Didn't drive the car for about a week. Last I recall, I parked it. No lights on, radio face detached, radar detector unplugged. Everything seems fine.

Today, battery is dead. Car cranked for about a second, then nothing. All you can hear is the tick of the starter solenoid. Voltage on the MR gauge pack registers about 10 volts. I check the battery (stock), and the indicator is white which means the battery is depleted. I also checked the water levels in the battery, and they're fine.

I can't think of any reason why the battery would die unless I have some sort of an electrical drain. But I can't think of one, so I need suggestions on where to look.

The car is stock with the exception of my JVC KD-NX5000 headunit and Sirius tuner. I do have my V-1 hardwired into the map light cluster... but as I said, that was disconnected and in the glove box.

I doubt it's the radio, as when the key is out you can't turn it on. I used a Crutchfield harness to connect to the car's wiring.

Only thing I did recently.. well maybe two months ago was finally connect the 12V lead that amplifies the antenna to the headunit.

Any suggestions? I'm stumped. I've never had a car battery die on me in a week's time... the battery is practically new as is the car (4500 miles approx). I managed to jump start it with a portable booster, and drove around for 2 hours until the battery was charged again.

Suggestions?

 

where are you located? If it is cold, it will help to "drain" your battery faster. Batteries do go bad though. I just replaced my battery in my car even though the indicator said it was fine and the fluid were good. It wasn't charging at all though. So you may have the same problem. From your description it seems that you shouldn't have anything powered from the battery. did the battery held the charge after you drove the car for the 2 hours? If it did then I would think you will be fine, just keep an eye on it.

 

You can check with a multimeter, get a new battery, hook the leads on the multimeter up between the negative terminal of the battery and the negative cable(make sure everything is off first) then see what the current draw is. It should be like .002 IIRC if it is more wait a little while to see if your PCM needs to time out (like 10 minutes) and look at the draw again.

 

Charge kept after driving around... indicator returned to blue on the battery itself, and when the engine is off but key is on ACC, the voltage gauge registers around 12 volts. I can't find my multimeter anywhere... will have to look tomorrow.

As for weather, I'm in New York and it's been unusually hot for this time of year. It's been in the high 70's, low 80's the whole week.

I suppose the battery could just be bad... but after 4500 miles?!?!?

I'll keep an eye on it and see what happens.

 

Check out the charging system too. Make sure it's charging good.