anitacoleman

I have checked battery cables..fuses..lights etc and even lights being left on even checked that the trunk light does not stay on. This is a brand new battery! I can charge the battery and then go back 30 minutes later and it is totally drained again. Please help with any ideas that you may have. Thanks in advance!

User Omega

Pull your radio fuse and let it sit. I have read threads about the radio somehow causing a drain like this. Although there are many other possible causes, I would check this first unless you have an amp clamp and want to check components for drain individually.

I have also seen brand new batteries with issues. It can't hurt to load test it after you get it charged back up.

User Omega

Onstar is also known to cause a drain but I think that takes longer than 30 mins. Let us know what you find. Hopefully you will get some more input here.

Garry in AZ

If the battery goes dead that quickly, it is defective. Get a replacement battery from wherever you bought it.

Bruze

Anita: If it is totally drained in 30 minutes, then you have a short somewhere. Any of the normal parasitic drains wouldn't kill it that quickly.

Bruze

Being a new battery, and you suddenly have these problems, then logic says the battery would be suspect.

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EDITED TO ADD: Having screwed around with lot cars since around 1960 or so, when batteries were routinely very old and shaky -- they would barely crank the car over and we would have to charge them (and they would hopefully hold enough charge to work) jump the old POS from "dad's" car or whatever, or push-start the car if it was a stick.

From then up til now (I bought my last battery a few months ago for my 1951 tractor) I have never bought a new battery that wasn't any good. But having been on this forum for three years, it seems to be common now, or at least is suggested as a possible problem.

How often is this really the case? Have battery manufacturers forgotten how to make batteries? So far, I'm not buying it. I'm betting the majority of problems are something other than a brand-new battery being bad.

4SUMERZ

Are you sure that the battery doesn't have a short across a cell or two?
If the battery has been drained and charged up a few times or more, chances are buildup on the plates were shocked and the stuff fell on the bottom of the battery to short out a cell. If the battery is load tested and Ok, then you can troubleshoot to find the excess amp draw on the system. Typical amp draw on a C6 is 0.01-0.02 Amps after about 20 minutes. Any thing higher than 0.2 amps, and you have an excessive parasitic drain on the system.
To find that parasitic draw, disconnect the negative post from the battery and hook up a multi meter as per the attached PDF.
There are things to test if you do have an excess amp draw. If all these check out OK, then start pulling fuses one at a time to try to isolate the circuit causing the excess draw.

Good Luck, and report back if you find the culprit.

Mad*Max

Anita welcome to the Forum!

My vote goes for a defective battery, you will probably need it replaced. I have to presume you had no issues with the old one?

anitacoleman

I really appreciate all the information and thank you very much!

After following all the information I have found that the battery cable was ever so slightly NOT tight enough which was draining the battery...not sure why it came loose but I will make sure it will not do that again!

Thank you EVERYONE for the fassst replies!

Cherokee Nation

LV2TOUR..Where is that OnStar box located at.....Thanks

Bruze

Anita, I'm no electrical genius, but some random thoughts:

- In your OP, you stated that the battery was "drained." How did you determine that -- because it wouldn't start? Did the dash lights come on? After you charged it for 30 minutes, would the car start?

- I don't see how a loose cable will drain the battery, but I could be wrong.

- IMO, what happened is that whoever put the new battery in never tightened the terminal properly -- giving you a poor connection that wouldn't allow enough current to pass through to start the car, but might allow enough current to light the lights, etc.

Mad*Max

very curious too...

cmonkey713

Had the same thing happen to me on a C-5. The OEM battery terminal clamps are not very good, especially after being removed and reattached several times. Glad you found the problem.

HBsurfer

Just guessing here but maybe the loose terminal keeps the battery from being recharged?

Cherokee Nation

That is correct, I had the same problem with a loose neg.terminal.....

Bruze

I was wondering in my last post if indeed the battery was drained, or it was just the loose terminal preventing current from getting through?

If it was still charged, then hooking a charger up wouldn't have any effect -- whether the connection allowed charging current to get through or not.

Reading between the lines of her posts, the entire problems seems to be the loose terminal on a new battery. Was the old battery actually dead?

Mad*Max

I gots to know

bassman50

Anita,

If your problem is not related to a loose battery terminal connector and it doesn't appear to be the OnStar module, consider that your alternator might have a leaking diode. If that's the case, the alternator could put out enough current to charge the system (barely), but will then draw enough current when everything is off to drain the battery fairly quickly. Absent anything else, you might have your car's charging system checked.

Steve

User Omega

Well you just cannot anticipate this sort of thing.



Members come and members go. POOOFF

Ben101er

This is what I am thinking. I used to have a 63 vert that did the same thing, and it had no electronics to drain a charge. It was a wire that had shorted out. I could be driving it and it would be fine, then, for no reason, it would start discharging and you had about 15 minutes before the car would actually quit. Took forever to find the issue.