A QUESTION FOR AUTO MECHANICS! Battery keeps going dead, over time, repeatedly.

My skid steer is the same, factors battery shut-off switch. Fixed a bad ground and replaced my terminal ends and now it doesn't die if i forget to shut it of at the end of the day.

I've spent countless days searching for haywires on my truck to resolve voltage issues; only cost is your time

Make sure your brake lights aren't staying on. There is a linkage behind the pedal that makes them come on of course, but if it becomes loose, it won't break the ciruit. You have to get under there and tighten it up. Look for Youtube solutions if that turns out to be the cause.

Reflash the Heisenberg compensator coils then change the blinker fluid. Should fix everything. :)

I'm a fleet manager for a large construction company with over 600 on road vehicles and twice off road yellow and orange junk but for the last 3 weeks I've felt like some other source is at work here killing our batteries and it's not only our company even battery supplier having trouble with shit holding a charge usually the seasonal temp changes have some affect on cranking batteries but this year it's way more than that I've been in this business over 20 years and never have seen a discharge problem that's basically estate wide no matter the battery manufacturer everyone has same problem has to be some explanation that's beyond our spectrum of thought cosmic? Grubment? Polarshift? Who knows but something is up also location is close to dc VA MD area

Yep, all day

Where did you buy the alternator? If AutoZone, then just use it as a core and go buy one at a reputable parts house...Or you have a drain/short...

Battery quality has gone to crap in the last few years.
Not sure what happened, but they are crap now.

The battery on my GMC Sierra lasted 10 years and was still working fine when I changed it out on general principles.

Lucky if you can get over 2 years out of the new ones.

Check for any leaks that would result in oil or coolant dripping into the alternator. I am on my 6th alternator in 2 years. Valve cover gasket was replaced. Oreilly remanufactured warranty put 3 in and I gave up and got a Denso. It failed 2 times. I think that auto parts from China are faulty. Now and then, battery warning light comes on and of course, this means that the car will cease to run in under an hour. Honda Odyssey 2008.

Always a good place to start but get a voltmeter and check the output of the alternator.

It should be 14.5 Volts DC or it is not re-charging the battery.

Distributor problem Maybe...

My wife had the same model and year with the same problem. After several battery replacements and numerous tests, an independent mechanic finally discovered it was being drained by the radio even though it was off. The whole radio needed replaced. It was out of warranty and it was an expensive fix.

Anything over 12.7 is charging the battery, but 14.5 is optimum and allows it to properly bubble to keep the plates clean...

Unhook the radio and see if it happens again. Seen this several times in Chevrolet vehicles.
If so replace the radio.

Last Edited by Mcsquared on 10/13/2021 09:21 AM

Also called 'voltage regulator' in newer car, we use to call them voltage distributors...

And your battery will always seem drained even after full charge on a charger ,it only drains after driving a bit with the car in a case of bad distributor overcharging the battery...test it!

This is more true than not. I quit buying anything electrical from Autozone nearly 20 years ago because of a rebuilt alternator. It went bad a few weeks into service, went back, got another and it went bad in a few weeks. Rinse, wash, repeat another time. Finally I'm on the side of the road again with a bad alternator and I decide that I'm actually going to fix it this time. Had an old alternator in the trunk that had bad bearings. Looked at the one in the engine and it's bearings seemed to be just fine. Took the innards of the good alternator out and swapped them into the the case of the rebuilt alternator. Everything was good after that.

I looked at the innards of the rebuilt alternator and there was a sticker that said APE. It looked like an ape rebuilt that alternator. The commutator had chatter like nothing that I'd seen before.