Chasing that parasitic drain is fiddly, but isn't all that difficult. Basically, you just insert an ammeter with an appropriate range between the battery negative terminal and the negative cable clamp. Then start pulling fuses until the current drops to what it should be (a small fraction of an amp). Make sure you don't have the doors open (aka dome lights on). ;-)

Any chance there's a green "key symbol" on the dash? That would indicate that your car has forgotten the key(s), presumably because of the long periods of having no battery connected.

Otherwise, chasing a no-start (as in "starter not engaging at all") is really fairly simple.
With a helper, connect the negative lead of a voltmeter (or really, even a test light) to the engine block, and the positive to each of the following points, and have the helper turn the key
1) Large red cable to the starter (should stay at battery voltage all the time).
2) Small "control" cable to the starter (should go to battery voltage with the key in start position).
3) The negative battery terminal (if you get more than a very small fraction of a volt between the battery negative terminal and the engine block, you have a bad engine ground strap - not uncommon).

Also, the starter won't engage unless the car is in Park or Neutral, so try "rowing" the shifter through the positions a few time to help clean up the switch contacts that report the shift lever position. Make sure the dash indicator shows that the tranny IS in P or N.

If all the tests above show that you've got solid voltage to the starter's main supply line, control line, and that the ground strap is working, you "simply" have a bad starter.

 

That it won’t crank anymore could be your battery. Even though you have 12.5 volts, there might not be enough amp capacity to actually turn the starter motor and fire the plugs. You could try recharging the battery or take it to a parts store to have it tested. If it’s a few years old, it probably is at a point where it can’t hold a charge well and might be ready to die.

Re the draw, depending on where you hit, it’s a negative ground car so you might have pulled, pinched, or damaged the insulation on a positive wire and it’s contacting the chassis or some ground point. You could check the area that was damaged and look for wires and the harness it that area. Fuse pulling and what Habby suggests are a good way to go.

Another way is I’ve got a neighbor with a draw and he just keeps the battery on a trickle charger. They’re about $35.

Good luck!

 

Voila, we have a winner. I moved the gear shift a few times and then was able to jump-start the car - thanks habbyguy.

My next step is to investigate a trickle draw with an ammeter - do I need a shunt type or a clamp one will work?

LeftOverParts - the battery is only 4 months old and this is the 3rd battery I have installed this year, yes, the batteries are dying but the fault is somewhere else.

Thanks guys.

 

Glad to hear the "shifter row" did the trick. If it keeps acting up, it's likely that it'll quit altogether eventually, but this should give you time to hunt down a replacement switch.

I prefer the shunt type ammeter, but IF (big if) you have a clamp-on ammeter that will do DC (most are AC-only) and that can read down to a small fraction of an amp (that is, has a 1- or 2-amp DC current scale in "clamp-on mode"), you should be fine.

If you do use a shunt-type meter, be careful about its maximum current rating, since if the draw is really large, you could cook the ammeter (most smaller home-style meters aren't fuse-protected in their (usually) 10-amp "max" mode.

 

Thanks for the quick response. I don't have an ammeter at this time so will get a shunt type.

A quick search on Amazon I came up with these two, either one will be fine?

4-in-1 DC Electricity Usage Monitor, DC 6.5-100V 0-100A LCD Display Digital Current Voltage Power Energy Meter Multimeter Ammeter Voltmeter with 100A Current Shunt - - Amazon.com

4-in-1 DC Electricity Usage Monitor, DC 6.5-100V 0-100A LCD Display Digital Current Voltage Power Energy Meter Multimeter Ammeter Voltmeter with 100A Current Shunt - - Amazon.com

www.amazon.com

Voltage Current Display, DROK DC 4.5-100V Digital Voltmeter Ammeter Multimeter Panel, 0-50A Volt Tester Meter Amp Detector, LED Voltage Amperage Monitor Gauge for Automotive Motor Battery - - Amazon.com

Voltage Current Display, DROK DC 4.5-100V Digital Voltmeter Ammeter Multimeter Panel, 0-50A Volt Tester Meter Amp Detector, LED Voltage Amperage Monitor Gauge for Automotive Motor Battery - - Amazon.com

www.amazon.com

-Darshan

 

Darshan, either one of those will work great, and you have no worries about exceeding the current rating (unless you try to start the car with it inserted).

I - being cheap - just use my "bird in the hand" multimeter's 10 amp setting. You can get a really high-function meter for chump change, and use it to do a lot more than just current drain. Here's an example of one (I didn't get overly analytical about finding the best option - this is just representative of the kind of meter you can get). Heck, I believe Harbor Freight gives away cheap but generally adequate multimeters for free via their coupons, at least on occasion (I've got three or four floating around, and stash them where I might need them). I believe they have a 10 amp setting. The only down side to this would be if your parasitic drain is above 10 amps (which is a HUGE drain, BTW), which could blow your 10 amp ammeter circuitry. 10 amps would be the rough equivalent of both headlights being on.

Just for giggles, I just now did a quick check to see if anyone was offering a clamp-style multimeter that had DC (not just AC) current ranges that would be useful. It would be hard to beat this one for an all-around auto meter for the money (though there may well be other options that are better).

 

Thanks a lot habbyguy, this is very helpful.

Darshan

 

I want to give a little update on this and ask a follow-up question:

I did some extensive testing and didn't find much parasitic drain from the battery, maybe ~ 0.15-0.2 amps which shouldn't kill the battery if the car is run every day, checked all the fuses and they were fine. I checked all the grounding cables to the chassis (whichever ones were accessible) and they had continuity with the negative battery cable.

Just out of curiosity I then checked for continuity between positive and negative battery cables (with the battery disconnected of course) and there was continuity, there is a short somewhere which maybe my problem. Now, I am getting continuity when I connect the negative multimeter lead to the positive battery cable and the positive multimeter lead to the negative battery cable, not the other way round.

The process to diagnose this problem seems extensive and beyond my abilities. I want to hear responses if it can be done by a professional car electrician and how much it may cost me? Any other procedures that I am missing?

Thanks a lot.

 

I'm not sure what "continuity" means in your context. There SHOULD be some reading if you hook up an ohmmeter between the two leads, and I'm not surprised if it's a "one-way circuit", as much of what is there is semiconductor-based, and they exhibit that kind of characteristic.

But that's not a test you should be worried about - it's only going to confuse you (unless you know a LOT about electronics). The only (!!!) thing that matters is how much current is flowing when the car is just sitting in the driveway. 0.2 amps is a LOT more than it should be. Yes, that's not enough to run down a healthy battery overnight, but one of (only) two things is happening here... 1) Your battery really isn't a good battery, and it's on its last legs, or 2) the drain goes up well over 0.2 amps sometimes.

FWIW, I was recently chasing a parasitic drain on my BMW, and wanted to be cheap and lazy (always good options), and bought this one. Then I just left it clamped around the battery lead (it's a true DC clamp style ammeter), which on my car is in the left rear wheelwell area), and could use my phone to monitor the meter. Easy peasy. Worked like a champ, and hey - it's a new piece of test equipment, and WON'T go up in a puff of smoke if the car suddenly draws more than 10 amps.

 

habbyguy, your post gives me some assurance but I am still skeptical. I checked for continuity with an ohmmeter, connecting its leads to the positive and negative battery terminals with the battery disconnected. In my mind, the positive and negative leads are connected through various loads and normally, should not be connected unless the load is on or there is a short in the system, the short could be in the load itself or somehow the hot and ground wires are touching each other. Now, there is no way I can check each and every load, can't even access the starter motor without dismantling a few things which is outside of my skill level. You have to think this in terms of a crash last winter, everything was perfectly fine before then.

I have gone through 4 batteries in the past year, 3 different kinds - all from a reputable source, currently I have a brand new Deka one which I didn't connect permanently as I don't wanna destroy it. I haven't started the car for over a month so that 0.2A of flow may be more once I turn on and off things as you said.

It's a 2006 MDX with 138k miles, the car runs great (when it runs), I want to get it fixed but obviously within reason. I am not sure if it is even possible for someone to get to the bottom of this and at what cost?

 

Again, it's normal for there to be some load on the battery, particularly when first connected. So ignore your ohmmeter readings across the battery contacts... you're in over your head on that and misinterpreting the results, IMHO.

There's really no other option than to monitor the actual current flowing out of your battery until you figure out what's drawing excessive current, and then fix it. It's not difficult, but takes time and patience. I'd suggest the meter I referenced as a starting point, and just leaving it clamped around the positive battery cable, and watching for unusual amounts of current. When you see that happen, you just start pulling fuses until it goes away, and you've narrowed the search down 95%.

 

Eric O from South Main Auto Repair on Youtube has some great videos on how to track down parasitic draw. If you don't have an ammeter, you can look for voltage drop across each fuse.

 

habbyguy - thank you, you give me some hope, I will troubleshoot again next week

fstrife - I will try that too just to confirm, thank you

 

I have got some updates and more questions:

-I checked the primary and secondary under the hood fuse boxes and there was no change in amp flow
-I checked passenger side fuses and again no change
-I checked 7 accessible fuses on the driver side and no change

-when I was checking the passenger side fuses they all had a little bit of oil on them which I don't think is normal, can you explain how it could have gotten there?
-with the car running, I get a volt difference of 0.014 across the "IGI main" fuse (see yellow circle in the first photo), no volt difference across the rest - does it mean anything?
-with the battery disconnected and removed from the car when I put the clamp meter across the positive lead I see a current of ~0.2A, confirmed that several times so does not seem to be an anomaly, could there be a hidden accessory battery somewhere?
-I don't think I mentioned this before but I had opted for a factory option where they bring a cable forward through the bumper for me to be able to connect it to a wall outlet at home to prevent the battery from discharging during sub-zero temperatures - I have never used it before but just thinking could that have anything to do with me problem? How would that keep the battery charged as I don't see an electric battery charger in the car?
-any idea how to check the rest of the fuses on the driver side? Is there a way to remove the whole fuse box? (see the 2nd photo)

Thanks,
Darshan

 

If you took the battery out and are still registering 0.2 amps, you're doing something wrong. What kind of meter are you using? If it's a clamp-on ammeter, is it really capable of reading DC current?

That said, if you're reading a voltage of 14 millivolts across a 50 amp fuse, there's certainly quite a bit of current flowing somewhere (according to the table I just referenced, as much as 5 or 6 amps). That big fuse feeds a bunch of other smaller fuses, so now the trick is to figure out which of them goes to the circuit in question, either by reading voltage across them (to calculate the amps being drawn) or by pulling them individually to see if the excessive current stops.

 

Thanks again.
This is the meter I bought, and it does measure DC current - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075Z1GH5L/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I will check the circuits that the big fuse is feeding.
Any idea how do I remove the driver side fuse box as I can't access all the fuses on it?

 

Your meter does NOT measure DC current in "clamp mode", BTW, so it's not at all surprising you were getting odd readings. The meter does do DC current, but using the leads (and so limited to 10 amps, most likely).

Don't remove that fusebox - there are no fuses behind it (though the turn signal relay is back there). It's a royal pain to pull the fusebox, and you shouldn't have to.

 

I want to give a final update on the issue that I have been dealing with for over a year:

I did all the tests and experiments that I could and unfortunately, was not able to figure out the problem except for the fact that the main ground cable was severely corroded. I then left the car with the mechanic for a few days and they repeated all the tests that I did and found no problem. They recommended changing the main ground cable which I agreed to. I don't know why they had to but on the final day they disconnected the bluetooth module and the stray current went away! I was so happy as I don't even use the bluetooth. I have had the car for 3 weeks now and the problem has not recurred. I am very excited to add another 60-70k miles on my car .

Thanks, everyone for all your help, habbyguy - you get a special mention as you have been the most helpful.

Best regards everyone.