Battery or drain Updated with New Info

My 99 Ram 1500 5.2 won't start. I am thinking it might have a drain on it, but I have no ability to test for it. Is there any simple method to test it?

Why it might be the battery:
Battery is at least 4 years old. Actually, cannot remember when it was installed at all and cannot find a date on it.
Ran a trickle charger on it for several hours yesterday, it started yesterday, but ran very weakly.
This AM the battery is drained to the point the door chimes won't even light.

I was inclined to just replace the battery, until I saw the price of them.

UPDATE:

I was able to know it was a drain. I was not able to figure out what was draining it. I took it to a garage. While there it operated perfectly without draining at all. I got home from work and had a friend drive me to pick the truck up. I am figuring, it is going to be one of those really annoying intermittent problems and I am going to fear driving this thing. Anyway, I left the truck in the middle of the pull around jumped in my regular car to take my friend home. When I returned I pulled in behind the pickup and saw the backup lights were on. the lights on the top back of the bed were shining nice and bright. the way I normally park it I am not able to see the back of the truck.

Now I have to see if I can find out why. My first guess is the linkage on the shifter isn't hitting the switch. But I actually have no idea how it actually works.

Just had a thought...

I am going to trickle charge it.
Then disconnect the battery overnight.
See if it will start in the am.
This should tell me right?

https://board.moparts.org/ubbthread...cal-problems-79-lebaron.html#Post2077065

how to measure a drain with just a regular volt meter.

also be sure to tape the switches closed like door and hood

If you have a few days and a voltmeter, I would check the voltage sitting in the vehicle hooked up. Then check it again in the morning while hooked up. Then unhook it, charge it, check voltage, let sit overnight, and check it again. I'm not very good at electrical, but this should let you know if the battery is losing juice or if something is drawing juice from it.

I'm assuming that you dont have (or can borrow) another good battery that you could sub in for a check.

4-5 years is time for new one

I have my grandfathers voltmeter around somewhere, but no idea how to use it. He, the electrician, would be very displeased with me, but I don't know how to use it.

I suppose my evening will be finding it and watching some youtube videos.

Very simple to test for a draw, especially with a multimeter. You can pull the negative battery cable, hook the multimeter between the cable and the battery and measure the draw in current mode.

https://www.optimabatteries.com/en-us/experience/2010/12/what-normal-parasitic-draw

There is a video link at the end of the article on how to do it

Tell me which model multimeter you have and I will tell you how to use it.

Don't forget to close the door and if you have a hood light pull the bulb with the hood up. Basically, you do not want to turn anything on while doing this test or you will end up chasing your tail.

Easy way to check draw.Close doors make sure nothing is on.Disconnect neg cable.Attach test light to neg cable couch other end to neg terminal.Should be no light or super dim as computer,memory etc darw a bit.As for batterys being 4 or 5 years old and needing replaced thats bull.Last one in the 04 Ram was replaced last year.The one in my 65 was at least 8 years old.Not saying its not bad but could be.As for running bad they will with low battery voltage and or not charging right.That and they have to relearn after battery goes dead/low.Best to charge it and take it to say Advance or AZ and have them check charging and battery.Its free.Rocky

Yes slo charge it overnight then take it in for load testing

A trickle charger does almost nothing for a very discharged battery. It will need to sit on a 5-10 amp charge for at least overnight to get things charged up again. But like said, if it is over 4 years old it is not wasted money to replace the battery anyways.

Definitely a drain.

It is only a guess, but I had tires replaced just before this issue arose.

Any way the tire guys screwed something up? It is a 99 but it does have ABS.

You can use an inexpensive test light and follow the advice of sniper. If it glows there is draw.

Just for giggles, I went to the garage and checked my car. I put a test light on the negative terminal and negative cable while attached and no light. Tested with the battery cable off and same. I did get light from positive to negative with it connected. Voltage sitting is 12.55. Are you sure this method works?

Did you watch the video link I supplied? Because you don;t seem to be doing it right.

I quoted the test light scenario. I have to read the manual for my multimeter to figure out the current draw test. I watched the video and plan on attempting it tonight or tomorrow. My battery and system is fine, but I am just curious and like to learn new things. I see there is not supposed to be a light if np draw, just now noticed that. Maybe I needed more coffee before posting.

When I had a problem like this it turned out to be the radio. It was very fun/educational learning how to do this test.

A test light s a poor choice for draw resting on modern vehicles. You will have a draw, the computer itself draws a bit even when the key is on the counter in your kitchen. That draw may not be enough to light up the test light though. Which is why you need a meter on these newer vehicles. In the video they talk about what is a normal draw for later model vehicles and what it too much. 35 milliamps (that's 35/1000 of an amp) is typical, over 85 milliamps gets into the too much category.

Tell us what meter you have and I can tell you how to set it up for draw testing.

This is beyond my ability and I will be taking it in to a mechanic to look at.

I could not find the voltmeter. I might have tossed it, I don't know.

If I had an inside shop, had a little more electrical knowledge and all it might be interesting to learn this, but for right now my regular job is such that it is more reasonable to pay someone else to do it while I work.

I work on my vehicles as relaxation from my regular job, this would not be relaxing to me.

Have you tried the simplest thing by having the battery tested and replaced as necessary before paying some one big bucks per hour to do the easy work? These newer computer driven cars are very hard on batteries they don't last near as long as the used to.

If that's the way you feel I understand, but Harbor Freight has multimeters for $5 (you need one anyway). And when you find the drain you will be proud of yourself.

We just ran into a problem with the battery in my wife's car. She started the car and went someplace and it worked fine. When she was ready to come home, the car did not start. I jumped if off and she drove home. I put the battery charger on it (30 Amp charger) for a 1/2 hour, then disconnected the charger and went to start the car, but it wouldn't crank at all. I had to jump it to start it to get it into the shop.
I pulled a battery cable thinking there must have been some kind of draw to take the battery down so quickly. Nothing! I pulled both cables, and put the charger back on for another 1/2 hour. After I removed the charger, I checked the voltage with my volt meter, I could watch the digital volt meter reading drop! In less then 2 minutes, the voltage went from 12.85 volts down to 10.75 volts! The 5 year battery developed a dead cell a day after the 5 year warranty expired!
I've been around a lot of car batteries before, this is the first battery I've ever seen die so quickly. Usually they give you a little warning, not this one, good one hour, dead the next.
It was kind of cool watching the battery voltage drop so fast. The new 5 year battery cost $64.79 out the door. Gene

Poorboy had prety much same problem with my 65.Went to cruise started just fine.Got ready to leave and nothing.Got a jump and it ran bad even with alt charging good.Got home shut it off.Checked batt volts and was at 5 volts.Hooked up the charger and alt was 14.3.Battery was at around the same when I took charger off.Opend the door and watched it drop to like 3 volts.Battery went bad that fast.Rocky

A battery load tester is your friend.

All new vechicles with computer have a steady need for voltage to keep the computer ready to run, some draw more than others
You can disconnect the negative lead at night in the dark and then touch it back to the battery post to see if it sparks or not. If it sparks the car is drawing current

The old battery was 6 years old. I was going to take it in to be tested, but figured it wouldn't hurt to replace it.

Put the new battery in and started no problem. 2 days later. Nothing.

Charged all night and bought a $7 tester. This morning battery tested and read 13, All good. I disconnected the negative and tested for a drain. I don't know what I am doing but it reads 13 as well. Pretty sure this is only measuring the battery not the drain. I have no clue what I am doing and all the youtube videos start with the assumption that you have some basic idea of what you are doing.

So far it has been 4 hours of my time wasted. That is far more of my time than I would have paid a mechanic to do this.

and you don't even want to know how much this was not relaxing, go inside watch a video, go outside and try something else, back to video, back to truck.

Get a cheap test light that uses a 12 volt bulb.Disconnect neg cable.Install light bettween cable and post.Should not be lite.Might have a real dim light if there are accessorys that you have.Make sure all items are off and doors closed.If its lite start pulling fuses.Easy way to test draw.If you have volt meter start and test to check alt output.Should be over 13 volts running at say 2ooo RPM.Rocky

A test light is useless on a newer vehivcle, there will be a drain but the test light cannot tell you if it's too much.

You cannot use voltage to test for a drain, you have to set your meter up for current measurement. I will offer, one more time, to tell you how to set your meter up to read current if you will me what make and model meter you have. The current draw test is very simple and a meter will give you hard numbers to use in comparison.

Sniper,

I do appreciate the offer. The multimeter doesn't even have a brand name. It is the $7 item from Harbor Freight.

I hooked the black to common and the red to the milliamp. I disconnected the negative lead and put the multimeter in series with the battery connector and the negative post. I don't really remember, but at 250 it either read nothing or 1 and I had to move it down to the lower settings. At 20 it read 13.

I then reconnected the connector to the battery and tried testing the fuses. It was pretty difficult to get the pins in the right spot and so I gave up. I then put the multimeter back into series and started pulling fuses. I went through all the fuses in the engine compartment. From there I went and pulled the fuses from the dash panel. The reading on the multimeter did not change. There were three fuses I could not disconnect as they have some kind of funky covering. Two of them were yellow and I wasn't going to pull them as i believe they go to the airbag. Even if those two are bad, they aren't something I am going to mess with.

Oh, yes, I blocked the door switch closed when I did the dash panel fuses.

Did you put the knob on the meter in "DCA" 200M?

Might be easier to just put the red lead in the 10A plug and put the knob on 10A.

Then remove the negative battery cable, put the red lead of the meter on the battery cable and the black lead on the negative battery terminal. You should then be able to read draw, to test just open the door and you should seethe draw from the dome light on the meter.

I honestly cannot remember.

I kept watching different videos and running inside and outside.

Give me a minute and i will run out and try it right now.

That gives me a reading of 128 with the door closed and 148 with the door open

Now it's working, 128 is way high. normal draw for a computer controlled setup is something like 35. Now withte h meter setup start pulling fuses one at a time till the draw drops.

Trying to, but I think a big part of my problem is the connection for the pins won't hold for me. It keeps getting dislodged and takes a while to reconnect. I need some decent clamp types.

Also Noticed a small draw on both front headlights and that reminded me that I turned those on at some point, so I shut those off but the reading stayed up at 125 after.

Gonna get a friend to give me a hand if I can.

Thank-you, it is nice to finally be able to have a little confidence that the meter is at least set up properly.

If you have a battery charger you can use those clamps to hold the meter leads in place (don't plug in the charger though).

You can't really do any good with a battery charger like that. To properly charge a dead battery it will need to charge at 6-10 amps for 12-24 hours-usually 24. When you try to charge it with high amps like that you stand the chance of overheating the battery and doing more harm than good. That can sometimes get you moving though but that is not a good way to charge a battery. I will say this though, from what you are saying your wife's battery just died, it happens with age. When they are several years old they usually don't give much warning.

Anytime you pull a battery off of a charge, especially a high amp one you will have a "surface charge" where the voltage reading will be higher than the batteries true state of charge. This will fall of gradually, and sometimes quickly depending on the circumstances. For instance you charge a battery all night long you might have a reading of 13.3 volts right off the charger. After the car sits for a few hours or longer it will settle down to the true voltage which would be around 12.7 for a fully charged 12v battery at rest. You can also just turn the headlights on for 30 seconds or so and it will knock the surface charge off. When possible a hydrometer is the best way to determine state of charge but less and less batteries these days have access to the cells.