Parasitic draw, Parasitic Drain, Unwanted current loss. Whatever you want to call it, when its your car’s battery – proper testing is crucial to finding the problem. The Honda Element has a notorious knack for killing batteries & this is the best & most detailed testing video on this problem I have found to help understand the root cause. I perform a current draw test and show how the various doors, hatches & lights effect the battery. I show how to calculate the remaining life until the car won’t crank. And I give some suggestions on how to fix or how to work around the problem. If you do any Honda Element camping, you should definitely watch this video.
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Okay, I’m going to start with the sympathy factor. After months of trying to figure out what was wrong with my car, I spent a month’s income buying a battery, having the fuses checked out and the electrical lights on the dashboard restored and replacing the starter. That’s $900+. That’s my social security check amount. So today it is dead as a doornail, even though I just had the starter replaced a week ago and I bought the battery from AAA and had it charged fully overnight at AAA’s offices and I would like to test it as you did and find a fix. But I do not know what that device is that you’re holding in your hand. I didn’t look at the lights when I try to start the car but with the key turned on to the start position, I noticed that my dashboard lights came on. I am going to check to see if the overhead lights work right now just for fun. I have had the car for 4 years and it has never given me a single reason to take it to the shop until this electrical stuff started happening.
I’m a 69 year old woman and I did automotive repair on Volkswagens and 70s to pay my way through college. I rebuilt 6 Volkswagen engines with assistance. I can’t tell you how many carburetors and fuel pumps I rebuilt. And of course I did a tune-up with plugs and rotor in the distributor cap, replacing the points and used to own all kinds of metric tools. I don’t do car repair anymore so I don’t have those tools. I think my son stole them from me anyway. So what is that device? Is that a voltmeter?
Oh, I forgot to say that and my initial troubleshooting, I became convinced it was the ignition, especially because somebody had taken the cowling off my steering column, perhaps idiotically trying to steal the airbag somehow. If he was trying to steal the car, he was not too smart. For some reason the ignition key doesn’t even work, or doesn’t work on the passenger door. You can actually start the car using a butter knife for the key. And you can take the key out while the car is running.
Yes Diane, it is a voltmeter. Technically, it’s a DMM or Digital MultiMeter, because it measures various other dimensions. For testing the parasitic draw, you just want to be able to do a current test, so you need an Ammeter or the ammeter portion of a DMM. You can get cheap DMMs for not too much.