A great perplexing electrical drain challenge .

how many miles on her?

 

Welcome, Bill. I agree with @ChapmanF. The first thing I thought when I read your post was, "I wonder if she put it in neutral." When in neutral, the car does not charge the traction battery even if the engine is running or you're coasting with the brakes applied.

The battery, under stressful conditions like that long traffic jam can get kind of low sometimes, but it should not throw any alarms and should not get down to one bar. If it was really hot, the A/C would stress it a little extra, but it doesn't look like Sedona is hot today. So, either she put it in neutral and ran down the battery or the battery is getting ready to fail.

 

usually, you get a warning message to put the car in park or something

 

A) We disconnected the negative ground lead to the 12-volt battery, then connected a voltmeter with the positive red lead connected to the negative (disconnected) battery ground wire and the black lead connected to the negative battery terminal on the battery itself. With that our volt meter reads 12 plus volts.

Connecting a "volt" meter in this way to a circuit is done a million times a day. There is no danger to personnel or equipment. Any time a meter is setup for measuring voltage, the meter's impedance is well over a megohm and possibly in the 10s of megohms (assuming DMM)

The problem is that the methodology was misunderstood. If the negative terminal was removed (creating an open circuit) and the voltmeter placed across the open circuit (infinite resistance), the 'volt' meter will always read (+ or -) 12v depending on the polarity of the meter lead connections. There will be effectively ZERO current flow due to the high impedance of the voltmeter. The only way you'll ever get that voltage reading to change would be if you removed the 12v + lead or interrupted the circuit somewhere else in the path, which would cause the reading to drop to zero. If multiple paths, then every path would have to be interrupted.

So, if the meter was connected to the circuit as mentioned, and there was only ONE path back to the + terminal, the meter would drop to zero volts if that path were interrupted (like if the fuse was pulled). Maybe this is what the OP was trying to accomplish.

If they pulled every fuse in the car (to the point where zero fuses were installed), yet still had a 12v reading at the meter, then there is still a path out there that's not accounted for by the fuses.

 

Hmmm. I doesn't seem to me like that 1.42 mA should drain the battery that fast. To put it in perspective, it would take 41 days at that rate to pull 1 amp hour from your roughly 42 AH battery.

Did you pull the fuses under the dash as well?

And the orange safety disconnect is about as relevant as your refrigerator to your puzzle. You can ignore both.

 

With that our multimeter reads 1.42 milliamperes And I have read it should be drawing 35 to 50 milliamperes

Now I'm really confused. It's supposed to have 35 to 50mA, but you're only seeing 1.42 which is a pretty accurate reading for the typical homeowner multimeter....,,,,

Your reading is 1/20th of what it should be, yet your battery is dying in a few days? Something is not adding up.

 

a fella in another thread said his battery was good. took it to two places for testing, both said it was good. after 42 posts and $700. in useless repairs, he replaced the battery and everything was fine

 

I'm curious what the meter reading would show if they had it installed, showing 1.42 mA and then turned on an interior lamp. I believe most DMMs are fused for up to 10 amps. Put another meter on the battery terminals measuring voltage. See if the battery dies or how long it takes to die.

Or, if the meter has the ability to lock in the highest reading, leave the meter connected overnight to measure any spikes.

 

Are you sure you are reading the meter scale right ?
If you ARE......1.42 ma will NOT drain a good battery in WEEKS much less hours, regardless of what is causing it.
So, the logical conclusion is: The battery is NOT good. Tests are not always conclusive.
As batteries go bad, they "self discharge" internally where you can not measure it.

And a little point of clarification, the current flows OUT one post of the battery and through some kind of circuit and the back IN the other post. You would measure the same current flow on the positive post too.

 

there's no starter or alternator. inverter is not connected to the 12v battery and hv battery with the car off.

 

Doing that I read 16~18 milliamperes, with spikes every 5~10 seconds to around 40. The spikes were not synched with the security icon that flashes on the dash. Maybe some key detection thing? Is that right, that you were reading 1.42 milliamps? Or did you mean amps?

 

No 1,420 milliamperes.

1420mA (1.42 amps) is definately a problem and makes much more sense for what you are experiencing.

If removing fuses, etc wasn't able to isolate the unexpected load, then it sounds to me like you need to get a wiring diagram and start tracing it out one circuit at a time. A drawing should make it easy.

 

Brute force logic says you missed something during part B.

D proves that the 1420mA load is either in or downstream from the fuse box*.

Suggestion: Deep breath, take confidence. Repeat B with extra care.

Wild string of firecrackers theory thrown in: While vanishingly rare, there is such a thing as a faulty fuse box. All the fuses and relays and their connections could be fine, yet there could be flaws or damage elsewhere in the unit.

*Ok I guess you could test the ground strap to make sure it doesn't have low conductivity due to corrosion etc

 

Stating it that way is just misleading.
That is 1.42 AMPS......and is WAY high if it really is completely in the OFF mode.

BUT....that may not be abnormal for the first few minutes after you turn it off.

It has been covered how you need to check the real OFF current drain.
That is, set up your meter so that you see the 1.4 amps.
Put it in a place that you can SEE it without touching anything on the car.
Take all the FOBs and keys into the house.
Come back 2 hours later and look at the meter........WITHOUT TOUCHING ANYTHING.

If it is still showing 1.2 amps after 2 hours, it needs to go to the shop.

 

WOW!! Big difference between 1.4 mA and 1.4 amps.

That's close to (or maybe over) what the car draws when in ready and just sitting there.

If you got all the fuses, then you have either a bare wire just barely shorting or there's some aftermarket device that's been improperly installed. (A dead short would have huge current, and if it was unfused would cause a fire. So until you find it, no on can know if it's a very small short or a mystery device pulling current.)

The only thing that seems to fit the situation is that someone has tapped into the wire between the battery and the fuse box. It could be chafed, but that could prove very very hard to find. You'll have to follow the wire all the way till you locate it. But something tapped in would be easier to find since it would be in an accessible place, so I think I'd go for the easy stuff first. I didn't see anywhere if you told us if the car is new to you or you've had it a while. If the latter, then I fear you have your work cut out for you.

 

I interpreted part D to mean that he bypassed the wire between battery and fusebox and found the load still present. That should clear the main + cable, meaning the vampire is downstream from the fuse box.