Wow! Even better. I haven't completed the order yet so will check out Amazon instead. Thanks!

BTW - Deltran actually sells 3 sizes of solar charger: 5W is 14" x 16" x 1"; 10W is 14" x 28" x 1"; 15W is 14" x 40" x 1".

I just discovered my trusty Fluke 16 only has a setting for microamps so I was checking this cheep one from HF.. any comments or suggestions? It appears this has amps and miliamps.

LCD Automotive Multimeter with Tachometer Kit

or this one?

http://www.harborfreight.com/11-func...ity-61593.html

Hmmm...I've got 5 or 6 of the free ones: Digital Multimeter - Save on this 7 Function Digital Multimeter
Yeah, it's listed for $5.99 but it's not too hard to find a one page ad in the electric co-op magazine offering 20% off any one item and one of these as the free gift, alongside an LED flashlight and maybe a set of 9 or a dozen screwdrivers.

Seem to work fine, for what i've used them for so far.

Kimosabe!! that's rich Zane. I love it. I am still laughing since that post. Thanks buddy!

You are welcome but laughing at what? Are those meters junk? I really want to fix this drain. I've decided I don't wand a solar charger hanging off the back of my Jag.I haven't needed one for almost two yrs with the old Interstate Battery.

Hehe, Rick.....I had to google it....I was gonna spell it with two "e's".......

I'm retired and don't have $150 to spend on a new meter that I might only use once so I'm going to ask again after the comedy section. I'm sure these meters aren't the most accurate but yrs ago we used a test light in a series with the battery and pulled fuses until it went out.Not very accurate but it worked. Anyway the second one has 4-5 star reviews on Amazon and is $16 less at HF and they just opened a store near me.

You never should have told us that. Now we know you have plenty of free time and we can have you run all sorts of time-consuming tests. :icon_razz:

Back to the meters, I'd suggest the second one. It can handle up to 20 amps continuously, versus only 10 amps (on a duty cycle) for the first one. Plus there's no way you could use that tach attachment on an S-Type, so why pay extra?

Be prepared for HF-shaming, though. Not gonna say I go there all the time, but I do have a reserved parking space right up front. Wear a paper bag over your head and you should be fine. And don't forget your 20% off coupon.

One last thought on a meter: It may be worthwhile to shop for one with autorange and min/max recording. The recording feature is perfect for capturing transient values you'd otherwise miss unless you kept your eyes glued to the meter all night.

Before even shopping for a new meter, I'd still suggest the free troubleshooting ideas I listed in post #33. You've got all sorts of free time to try...

Dayum Karl! That's not what Wiki said it meant.....
Zen, I was serious about the free meter. I do have 5 or 6 of them and rarely ever get out the more expensive one I've had for years. I'll also admit to having the clamp-on one that shows up as an alternate (7 Function Clamp-On Digital Multimeter ) when you click your link, but I did pay for that one, albeit with a 20% off coupon. I guess I need to re-read the documentation on it....ad claims only ac current....I used it to confirm I didn't have a battery drain issue on the 03 S-Type after fitment of the new MFS. That was definitely dc current...I got values...they were within spec....

Let me put it this way, if there is ANYTHING else in the store you need or fancy, I'd use the 20% on that and pick up the free meter. If not, use the 20% on whichever meter you decide to get, and pick up the free meter as well. The free meter is thus far, the absolute favorite of all their free gifts! (Of course, this advice pre-supposes you can find a coupon offering a free meter!)

*Besides, I found a 10-pack of the LED flashlights at Tractor Supply one Christmas for about $3.99 or something...including batteries!!!

I'm going to take Karl's advice and do some easy tests first.. I have a known good battery in my van so I'll put that in the Jag overnight and see if the new battery holds standing alone. I should have done this last night..and thanks it's good to know those cheep meters will be ok if needed.

Hey Zane . . . great advice on these autostore giveaways. Our local had a recent promo of $1 big cans of spray degreaser - limit 2 per customer. Walked in & out 3 times to get stuff I wanted, but really attracted to those 6 cans - until manager started to frown . . .

Your comment about DVMs is good advice . . . I have so many, from shirt pocket friendly through to true RMS, clamp type, some with hold, some with temp, frequency etc right up to wideband CROs. Most valuable, and at the level of most use to DIYers here, are the low cost digital DVMs . . . never costing over $10.

Another tip . . . any shortcoming in measuring higher currents than DVM provides is easily met by making a suitable shunt of nichrome wire wrapped onto a 10W ww resistor.

Cheers,
:icon_toast:
Ken

Ken,

I got HEAPS of those cans. Kids owe me big time for the rest of their lives.

6 cans per customer, so, Son, Daughter, their partners, and spousey, and me, and some double ups. Not much degreasing these days, the S Types are oil tight. I use it as Spider kill., followed by a match, whoosh.

AS for meters, I have a super $$ one, still in its plastic sealed bag after 20++ years. I use a CHEAP Arlec brand I paid $20 for about 30 years ago almost daily for something. It is simple to use, and has a 10amp capacity, and was more than sufficient to use on the Silver car to find the drain it had waaaaay back.

I have numbers
 

Thank you for this logic.. First I verified another known good battery @12.60v (2yr old Maxx in my van) and installed it leaving the new Wally Maxx free standing with 12.70v just charged in the Jag from a drive.. Both batteries had most drop in the first 3hrs but in 14hrs overnight the new free standing Maxx lost 0.21v and the connected battery went down 0.73..That is about 1/2 volt loss below the normal settling down in 14hrs if that's normal. I never checked batteries so closely before.. I'm loosing about 1v per day so now I'm off to buy that $24 meter from HF and go off to "Quiescent Current Drain Land"cockroach hunting..be vewy vewy quiet. :icon_hunter:

Zenfly, normal current drain will be around the 30 milliamperes mark after 45 minutes. Usual places to check first are the alarm chirp sounder, this can be disconnected if faulty. Modules in the trunk may have damp causing partial shorts, make sure your auto functions are switched off and the ignition barrel flap is closing when the key is removed.

Should give you something to go on for a while.

Should give you something to go on for a while.[/QUOTE] wow " ignition barrel flap"? I had no idea. thanks for the tips

I had no idea a faulty ignition barrel switch can cause the car to not switch off completely when the car is turned off hence continuing to drain the battery.. thanks for the tips

edit: I just checked and it seems to be closed or closing I say because it has a small opening on the right of less than 1/32 or .25mm but I can see that little door there that I never ever gave a thought to.. I'm really not sure what I'm looking for here . Does it need to be closed all the way?

Yes it does. And regardless of whether or not you believe it is operating properly, it certainly would not hurt to go ahead and lube it. Some folks use powdered graphite....

Mine makes a sort of whirring sound as I insert the key and again when I remove the key, which is handy in terms of knowing it's working. I don't know if they all do that.

Yes thanks I hear that.

I now have the trunk closed with my new meter out on the leads and meter on the 20A scale in a series with the battery and it jumped up pretty high when I locked the doors then went to around 6A for a few seconds then settled to 0.75A for about 40 minutes and now it's at 0.00A and jumps to 0.01A and back.. I feel stupid I don't know that but I'm going out to switch to a mA scale anyway. .stand by for edit.

edit: I found when it's resting and I disconnected the cable from the 20A socket I disconnected the battery and the count down starts all over when it reconnects so this time I'll touch the test cables together when I switch to mA scale.

edit2: I was out standing by the meter for a few minutes on this second wait to sleepy time and noticed it's pulling 0.63A on the 20A scale instead of 0.75A (that is 630 and 750mA I just learned dah!) then I noticed it jump to 9A+ bouncing to the high 8A for a few sec. then back to 0.63A while counting down to sleep.. Hmmmm..any thoughts on 9A showing up for several sec 3 times in 10min while waiting for sleep? Jag got some VooDoo hopnin' mon.


OK here we go Edit#3: I let it rest the second time until I had 0.00A on the 20A scale but just when I was about to switch to the mA scale it jumped to 9A again while I was looking at it and I have no idea WTF is going on but I don't think I should switch to the mA scale when it might jump to a 9A load.

Any thoughts as to what might be happening with a 0.00A-0.01A at rest jumping to 9A then back to 0.00 at rest every few minutes ? same thing while waiting to rest but 0.75A jumping to 9A..

The jump to 9A at rest from 0.01A is extremely worrying and may prove to be challenging to track down.
If you can read the circuit diagrams, available at jagrepair.com for free, then isolation of the various fuse boxes in turn would point to where the 9A spike is coming from. Once tracked to a fuse box then you come down to individual circuits.

Good luck and do keep us posted.

But does it keep doing it and still do it after 45mins or so?

I was worried when I saw that jump during the count down to sleep and yes "very worried" now. The thing that is most confusing to me is how do I even have 12.1v left from 12.6 overnight?(14 hrs) The car starts every day with the new battery but I'm sure not after 2 or 3 days sitting. Thanks to everyone here I already know much more and thanks to JagRepair.com I now have wiring diagrams for my exact model and year as well as a 3300+ page service manual on my desk top. The sun will rise in an hr or so and I'll get back at it.

BTW the shutdown period often starts from zero again if you trigger something (like opening a door).

I'd say don't worry about any values seen as the car prepares to sleep. Only worry about values after the car has entered sleep mode. As previously mentioned, opening a door (or similar action) probably starts the wake-up process, so you'd have to wait again.

Another thought, since you haven't really found any faults once the car enters sleep mode: Do you really have a fault any more? If you didn't have a meter, what symptoms would you actually see now? I remember you originally had the Christmas light display, and a replacement battery seemed to fix that, didn't it? What was your initial concern with the replacement battery? Were you still getting the Christmas lights?

I read back through this thread and may have missed something, but am not sure you were still getting the Christmas light syndrome anymore. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you started checking for a parasitic drain as a precaution, but not because of any visible symptoms.

Personally, I'm don't put much emphasis on the voltage measurement of a battery at rest. I may be a lone voice in the wilderness, but I don't think this reading should get much emphasis. Sure, something extreme like 8.0 indicates a dead battery. But splitting hairs between something like 12.1 vs. 12.6 on a battery at rest? I've read it's important on these cars, but I'm not 100% convinced.

Now voltage under load? That's huge, and very important. But at rest? It's just an approximation that may not mean much.

I think the main thing here is are you still getting the Christmas light display? And if so, how about swapping in your known-good battery for a few days and see how the car behaves? Since you're not finding anything obvious with the parasitic drain test, you may not have a problem anymore but just don't realize it yet.

Thanks for all that.. I got some good advice early on and read quiescent drain several times and watched several parasitic draw tests on you tube before even starting. then printed the excellent quiescent drain procedure and had it in hand. Nothing was disturbed , trunk closed with leads to the meter. I still made a mistake the first time in disconnecting the loop to change my meter lead from the dedicated 20A input over to the 200mA before I did I just saw a jump to 9A. Isn't that 9,000mA at rest?

I just had the wild thought that a 9A draw in a spurt like that might be making some noise or sound that my old rocl'n'roll ears aren't getting so I'm going to set it up again tonight when it's quiet and have someone with ears close by. I'll tell my wife to listen for the sound of saving money. We could even listen with one of those old stethoscopes with the touch wand on it..Now that's funny right there I don't care who ya'are.

I still had 11.89v left this morning from 12.6 last night and it starts like nothing is wrong . As long as I run it every day I wouldn't even notice if I wasn't messing with meters . I'm not in bad shape..Some that gave advice early on said "let us know how you make out" etc. so this is it and thanks again for reading and your comments.

Here's another way to look at the situation:

If you threw in the towel, assuming there's some mysterious uncorrectable electrical fault, and sold the car in disgust (but kept your meter) and didn't say anything to the buyer, exactly what symptoms would the new owner see? Wouldn't they have a car that starts and runs just fine every day with no spurious faults?

Nothing wrong with continue to gather data. Just keep in mind you may have already fixed it.

You are absolutely correct..I am happy and said so a few times that all I have to do is run it every day an I wouldn't know a thing was wrong but sure as the sun comes up it will not start in 3 days left alone.. I've already come to terms that I may live with it as is.. I don't give up easy but have towel in hand. you give good advice. thanks

Please refresh my memory. Have you actually tried letting the car sit for three days since replacing the battery? Or are you afraid that's what might happen because it used to do that (plus turn on the Christmas lights) with the previous battery?


At one point I think you had mentioned a fear of causing damage by starting with a low battery. Even if you get all the lights again, there's no permanent damage caused. There's no harm done in trying to let the fault duplicate itself for troubleshooting or confirmation of a fix.

You did read all this..Thanks. Not knowing I did fear that when I saw 9v during cranking with the old battery.. It's good to know. I also don't fear disconnecting the battery any more.

One suggestion as I had a very hard time trying to read the current draw in mA and I kept waking the car up with every connection. Plus I was afraid of burning up my meter or at least blowing the fuse if the current draw got too big.

Finally got a nice clamp on ammeter that reads in mA.
GTC CM100. About $140 and reads from 1 mA to 100A!
SO much easier to use a clamp on meter compared to running it inline.

Until I got this meter I never could troubleshoot battery drains on ANY car I tried. The readings were just jumping around too much!
.
.
.

I may have found it... first I thought the car wouldn't go to sleep when I opened the trunk.. It did wake up again to 0.64A but sure enough it settled back to sleep again at 0.00-0.03 on the 20A scale so I started pulling fuses but to make it more fun I had to wait until it jumped to 9A then pull. That got old fast so I started pulling fuses in groups like all the windows and wait 5min because it jumped to 9v every minute or less.. Finally I pulled the row of 4 fuses that had both front seats , heated mirror and switch system power 4 relay and waited about 5min then 5 more minutes with no jump in amps. I put the important relay fuse back in with no problem and the same with the drivers seat fuse. The load didn't return.. I'll know in the morning..
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _________________________________________

edit: 8hrs later my connected battery went down almost exactly like it did when it was disconnected standing alone.

I want to thank everyone here for putting up with me through 73 posts and mostly cat_as_trophy for making "quiescent current drain" available with easy to understand step by step test procedures.

Dead battery from a parasitic drain? Just google "quiescent current drain" and pick the link from this forum if you're looking for a (parasitic draw) or drain on your battery..With the right meter it might be all you need.. "parasitic draw" is what I searched on youtube if you want to watch it done but really the cat_as_trophy "quiescent current drain" is what I printed and had in hand.

EDIT: I did a search and there are quite a few examples of auto seats draining batteries . Mostly in Mercedes but that could be because of the search words I chose. Anyway I'm going to guess I'm looking for a control module if I want to repair it ($$$?) but for now the fuse F-19 is out of the trunk distribution box and I have less than 30mA at rest.

Nice work! Any update? Is the car still behaving itself with the fuse pulled?

Thanks for asking so I just ran out to ck it and now I have 12.35 volts after 30hrs left over from 12.50 yesterday when before I'd have 11.9v after only 8hrs .. I found the problem but it's not fixed until the seat is working..I still have to study the wiring diagram for the passenger seat but the winds are down so I've been fishing. There is something in the seat pulling 9A for 2 seconds then sleep for 1 minute or so then 9A again 2sec almost like clock work. It's amazing it even has power when the car is sleeping but I can assure you it does and the "it" i'm guessing is another control module or there is a dead short there that clicks a breaker off then back on when the breaker cools? I'm guessing .. Those 9A spurts are still a mystery.

__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ___

EDIT: I checked one more time on the second day without starting the car.. from 12.50v two days ago I had 12.35v sitting after 30 hrs yesterday and I still have 12.28v after 42hrs so the normal 30mA draw is almost zip because this new battery has almost the same voltage drop while standing free disconnected.

9A might (?) be the seat motor peak. Could a switch be stuck, telling the module to activate one of the motors? If you can find which motor you'd be able to figure the switch. To do that you'd put the meter in series with each motor and see if you get 9A (or so) surges.

Or try disconnecting the switches but I suppose it could be a short or the like in wiring to a switch.

Maybe you can disconnect the seat's harness somewhere (at the module?) and see if the fault goes away. Then you know it's wiring/switch/...

All much better ideas than just swapping out the module to see if that works. It does seem to me like it sends power to a motor that is stuck then in 2 seconds a protection breaker cuts it off , waits 1.5 minutes then tries again. I have the wiring diagrams now, I have no excuse and need to at least learn what is in that circuit from the distribution box fuse forward. Two days ago I didn't even know the seats had control modules and the wife yells from the other room "I like the seat right where it is" but thanks for the tips because I will get into it unless I find it too costly.

Zen, under the front part of the seat you will find the module, held on by two 10mm nuts. Drop it down, disconnect it and open it up. The boards are a known problem and can be fixed.
Next thing to do is remove the seat and check the wiring harness under it for any signs of chafing, another known problem that can be repaired quite easily.

Great use of recommended process to diagnose and pinpoint culprit. BTW, Quiescent Durrent Drain writeup is in Sticky "How To . . . " at top of S-Type forum . . . perhaps should be generic across all forums? Thanks for the thanks, but not a one man effort . . . lots of accumulated experience from many here. So . . . what started as a "battery problem" slowly (across the dark of night) turned into a "seat motor problem", eh? Best wishes with your fix based on subsequent good advice.

Also, I must underline for those impatient with top/down fuse pulling, that the process of measuring the mV drop across the top of each fuse in situ (as suggested by JagV8 in original QCD thread) may save time . . . BUT, important caveat, you must be able to do so without re-awakening car!

Cheers,
:icon_beerchug:
Ken

"you must be able to do so without re-awakening car!" I had the bulbs pulled in the trunk but wondered what was going to happen when I opened it while the car was sleeping because there is always the "trunk open" warning on the dash. Sure enough it woke right up but I just waited again for the sleeping 0.00-0.03A ..I was lucky and didn't have to go past the trunk distribution box pulling fuses.