2) Well, I isolated the primary drain to one circuit. I noticed today that the battery was pretty weak after 2-3 days since I last drove it (and I left that fuse disconnected after I parked the car, so that circuit didn’t do it). I’m starting to think I ought to have the battery tested even though it is less than a year old. Of course, it also snowed four inches last night, so that doesn’t help with battery power.

Where did you get the 80A figure? If you’re just reading the fuse, that’s the current that it will (or should) burn up at. The circuit itself should never draw anywhere near that much. While a car is off, most will only pull X milliamps. The exact amount depends on the car (an old car just keeps the clock and radio supplied with power, so it will draw 10-20 mA; newer cars often have computers that keep supplied with power and can draw ten times that). If the circuit were pulling that much power, the battery would probably be unable to start the car within an hour, and possibly too dead to even charge by the next day! As far as when the car is running, I would still suspect that circuit to draw much less than 80 amps. In fact, the alternator in my car only generates 100amps (and many produce less), so if a single circuit drew 80% of the power, there’d be trouble! Usually a fuse rated much higher than the normal current draw is used because many systems draw a lot more power when initially started/connected before balancing out (due to capacitors and other components).

My immediate thought with the drain was that it would be something aftermarket (radio, amp, boost controller, etc.), but nothing I have added is connected to the circuit that is causing the big drain. It’s interesting that you mention the alarm though because I hadn’t really thought about that. I’ll have to check to see which circuit(s) the people who installed it connected it to… as soon as the snow goes away, haha. Thanks for the idea!

Yeah, I haven’t wanted the airbag to shoot my head through the back window or t-tops, leaving my body behind, so I’ve avoided really messing with it at this point. I have the “Big Green Book” (repair manual), which has all the “correct” procedures and circuit diagrams, so I’ll definitely be following that word-by-word or diagram-by-diagram if I end up having to deal with the airbag. It’s certainly going to be at the bottom of my list of things to check though!

Just wanted to give you some feedback:

1) I’m really happy I found your blog! It has the right amount of geekyness to interest me, but simple enough for me to understand. It has saved my brain from melting due to boredom.

2) It seems you have isolated the drain to that one circuit? I apologize if I misunderstand, but at least on my car (Mitsu Galant) that circuit is 80A, and way too large to cause slight decrease in voltage overnight. It would dry the battery out in less than an hour.

I had the same problem as you. I went over the small fuses with an amperemeter to see which ones were closed circuits, and found that the only one was the aftermarket alarm/central locking. Replacing the controller board fixed the problem.

And, one more thing: Be careful with the airbags. Those things don’t inflate. They blow up. As in detonate.

It sounds like you’ve been through some crazy things. I figure every experience makes us who we are, good and bad. Besides, ordinary isn’t as fun.

Please be careful with all this. I know that you are but still… things happen.

When I was very small, I once was showered with gasoline. I was standing under a very large storage tank. They were not expecting gas to come out when they made some change. But gas came out, lots of gas came out, and I was right under it.

When I was older (maybe about twelve), I grabbed a live wire and got a severe shock.

Well, I lived through several things. Maybe they are responsible for my brain’s not doing things the way “ordinary” folk do.

Robert