Battery Killing

[patshea098]

so my truck has a brand new set of interstate batteries in it. (7.3L). I put new ones in cause the truck killed the last set (under warranty thankfully). The truck has not been started in barely 24 hours, and these batteries are COMPLETELY drained. What is going on here? What is drawing so much power? It isnt that they are drained just enough to not start the truck, i mean they are compltely drained.

 

[DaveBen]

The batteries are good, I will be willing to bet. I just put new batteries in my truck and the SAME THING happened to me. I put the charger on the batteries and the truck started fine. You NEED to drive it for a while to get the FULL Charge in them. I mean 200 miles or so before they are fully charged. OR you could leave the charger on over night.

Dave

 

[Stroked68]

Check the Air Intake Heater (AIH). My AIH solenoid stuck and drained my batteries in 15min. Luckily it was dark out and I just happened to see the heater in the intake pipe cherry red glowing. Most people just disconnected it since it rarely comes on since most places arnt that cold and its got to be pretty cold for the heater to come on. Mine were drained all the way and the lights in the cab wouldnt come on or the door chime didnt work. DEAD!!

 

[Tail_Gunner]

Check the Air Intake Heater (AIH). My AIH solenoid stuck and drained my batteries in 15min. Luckily it was dark out and I just happened to see the heater in the intake pipe cherry red glowing. Most people just disconnected it since it rarely comes on since most places arnt that cold and its got to be pretty cold for the heater to come on. Mine were drained all the way and the lights in the cab wouldnt come on or the door chime didnt work. DEAD!!

It is possible the glow plug relay could do the same thing.

One other thing to consider if the previously mentioned possible causes don't pan out, you might have a bad diode in the alternator. A diode is like an electrical check valve that allows current to only flow in one direction. What an diode does is change the AC current generated by the alternator, to DC current to charge the batteries and for use by various devices/components in the truck.

If a diode goes bad, it will allow curent to flow in both directions, causing a short in the electrical system.

 

[DaveBen]

The reason I posted what I did is because they do not charge the batteries fully from the factory. You need to get them charged up before you go changing other parts like the alternator. If they do not hold a charge then you can start to change these other parts. Both of the above posts are possible.

Dave

 

[WD40]

Had to put new batteries on my truck last week, parked the truck on Sunday night and went to start it on Wed AM and nothing. The batteries were 3 years old, went to the dealer and had everything checked out. They put two new batteries on the truck and as I was getting the card out to pay for them, he said no charge. They had 10 days left on the 36 mo free replacement.
Doug