battery will not hold charge

[red8903]

Have put in new battery and new altenator but something is drawing juice from the battery that kills it completely. My mechanic seems to think it' the bose radio that was re-stalled in the car after the previous owner had it taken out. If anyone out there can give me some advise on what it could be i would love to hear from you. Thank you. I have only had the car almost a year and it only has 59k on it. It's a 1989 convertible with the 350 tuneport.

 

[Mart]

Simply put, if you suspect the radio, unplug it and see if the battery still drains, if the battery has been to drained too often, it's time to buy a new one.

 

[rbyrne]

Disconnect your + battery cable, connect a small (6 volt if possible) bulb between the + battery post & + cable. The bulb should light up, probably very faintly (it may even have to be dark in order to see the bulb) Start pulling fuses until the light goes out. This will narrow down the problem to only about 5 areas instead of 50.

 

[Yoda]

red8903 ~ Welcome to the Corvette Action Center Community ~

Jim,

I moved this down into to the C4 Tech forums in hopes you'll find a lot more answers. After a few days here it might be moved down into our "Polls" forums I'll leave that call up to one of our C4 Mods/Admins

Please post another thread in the Introduction forums and a photo of your 89 is in order too

Welcome aboard and enjoy the

Bud

 

[JT ZR-Won]

Simply put, if you suspect the radio, unplug it and see if the battery still drains, if the battery has been to drained too often, it's time to buy a new one.

Great suggestion.

I had a battery issue in mine not that long ago. I had it at the Chevy dealer for 2 weeks before they found it. It turned out to be my glove box light not fully turning off after the glove box was closed. I'd check to make sure all connections are off when you turn your car off. Something is 'ON' somewhere and draining the battery. Could be something small like a power seat switch being stuck on.

Jay

 

[mangusta1969]

Make certain to charge your battery back up to 12.6-12.8 volts with an external charger. If you jump start the car with another battery and then rely on the pretty weak Corvette alternator to charge your discharged battery while driving, you run a pretty good risk of harming the alternator.

For further information, you should also take a look at this recent thread:
http://www.corvetteactioncenter.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38205

Another point is that someone has recently mentioned in the referenced thread there is a intermittent failure mode within one of the Corvette's computers that can cause batteries to be drained. Follow the troubleshooting procedure in the thread to isolate this as a possible cause.

 

[Rain]

Mine did that when Susan would forget to switch off the lighted Vanity mirror..

Good luck with yours!
Rain

 

[Skyguy007]

I assume you have the correct type of battery installed in your Vette. When I bought my '96 earlier this year the previous owner had installed a "universal" battery, which had top and side posts. I encountered occasional dead battery situations when the top positive terminal periodically shorted out to the bottom of the computer bracket - even though the plactic caps and shrink wrapping was left in place. The correct side terminal only battery fixed this problem.

 

[red8903]

here is my baby

sorry i tried to send two pitcures but it was to big and my reply was already sent, so here is my 89. hope you all enjoy.

 

[RoadReady]

Be careful jump starting a C4 or you can fry the ECM. If you turn on the key with a 50 amp batter charger hooked up the ECM can get a voltage spike. The charger sees a low battery condition and kicks in, sending a voltage spike. Same when you hook to a battery on another running vehicle. To jump start, hook up the cables to a good and let it set for several minutes--this powers up all the microprocessor boards.
Normal drain in a C4 is 20 milliampere. Turn on the key and the CCM draws 180 ma.....

 

[red8903]

thank you

thank you to all of you that have tried to help with my problem. i will pass all the information onto my mechanic and will inform all of you the progress. thanks again. hope you all enjoyed the picture of my baby.