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2001 Buick LaSabre 3800 V6 battery charging

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Old Feb 20, 2021 | 09:48 AM
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Default 2001 Buick LaSabre 3800 V6 battery charging

I installed a new battery last year. Just recently it has started going almost dead after about three days.
I checked everywhere for anything drawing power and found nothing.

I was told that with everything shut off and you take the positive cable loose from the battery, touch it to the battery
and get a spark, it means something is drawing power. Is this a reliable test?

I checked the output of the alternator and it is charging at 15.3v and as it charges the battery it drops down
into the 14v range.
Could this charging range be destroying the battery?
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Old Feb 20, 2021 | 10:55 AM
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How much parasitic draw are you getting? With a meter not a spark. Need to be sure the network is asleep.
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Old Feb 20, 2021 | 01:12 PM
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I set my meter to the lowest amp setting, which is 2 amps and it showed nothing but zeros.
I took the battery to have it load tested and had to leave it. I'll find out in a half hour.
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Old Feb 20, 2021 | 01:57 PM
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Do a search on parasitic draw procedures. If you saw ZERO amps then you are doing something wrong. There will always be some draw on a modern vehicle.
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Old Feb 20, 2021 | 01:58 PM
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Which model do you have? Custom or Limited?
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Old Feb 20, 2021 | 02:15 PM
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Your alternator is doing it'* job.
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Old Feb 20, 2021 | 07:14 PM
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Originally Posted by bls2001
I set my meter to the lowest amp setting, which is 2 amps and it showed nothing but zeros.
I took the battery to have it load tested and had to leave it. I'll find out in a half hour.
Now you do realize you ca not do a current draw test with both battery post connected. To do this test one cable must be removed from battery and one tester lead goes to battery post and the other to the battery cable you have disconnected this must be done to get amperage draw test
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Old Feb 20, 2021 | 10:51 PM
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The OP has no knowledge of how to do a parasitic draw test, this is why I suggested a search on YouTube. It worked for me as I was experiencing random dead battery in the morning after just buying my current car. I bought a new battery because the battery that was in there was only rated at 650 CCA where as I know my car calls for 800 CCA so I figured the previous owner "cheaped out" by buying a lower amperage battery. After the new battery died a couple of weeks later then I started to do further investigation aided by YouTube.
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Old Feb 21, 2021 | 02:12 AM
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What they said ^^^^^^^

Originally Posted by bls2001
I was told that with everything shut off and you take the positive cable loose from the battery, touch it to the battery
and get a spark, it means something is drawing power. Is this a reliable test?
In the olden days before computers controlled everything, this was a great test. Nowadays, you could do that all day long on most modern cars and never see a spark, even if there is a problem. The reason for this is that the spark is only there if there is something drawing current from the battery at the moment the terminal is touched to the post. With a computer controlling things, very often the computer takes a second to wake up (too late to create the spark), then takes more time to get around to doing whatever is causing the dead battery.

That having been said, if this were attempted and a spark was observed, then there might be a problem.
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Old Feb 22, 2021 | 10:05 AM
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Originally Posted by Mad_Coachman
The OP has no knowledge of how to do a parasitic draw test, this is why I suggested a search on YouTube. It worked for me as I was experiencing random dead battery in the morning after just buying my current car. I bought a new battery because the battery that was in there was only rated at 650 CCA where as I know my car calls for 800 CCA so I figured the previous owner "cheaped out" by buying a lower amperage battery. After the new battery died a couple of weeks later then I started to do further investigation aided by YouTube.
I have studied how to do this now and find that the meter I have is not good enough to do this test and I can't afford to buy a better meter at this time.
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