sorry for the long post in advance,
My grandfather owns a 99 Caddy Catera w/ a Bose system. I know that it is the single amplifier kind and NOT the kind that has an amp for each indv speaker. The prob is that since he bought the car used 2yrs ago he has been going through batteries like a mad man. He finally just got fed up w/ dealing the caddy dealership morons and took the car into an auto electric shop. They determined that the problem was that there was a constant 8v (yes, 8 volt!!!) draw on the battery when the car was off. They traced the 8v draw back to the factory bose audio system. The problem was that they did not tell us where on the wiring schematic or what part of the audio system was causing the 8v draw.
I understand that 8v is a crazy draw on the battery in and of itself as I am former car audio comp guy. Have any of u heard of a problem like this b4?
As of now, my grandpa is taking the catera into the other caddy dealership on thursday b/c I saw the wiring schematic for this vehicle and nearly fainted. I am used to toyotas and hondas where there are only 2-4 instruments running on 1 circuit whereas, the catera had about 15!!! Any sugestions??? need help b4 my grandpa spends piles of money at the $105/hr caddy dealer...
cheers
Replies (1)
ttocs on 02/2/2005 12:36:26
did they honestly say 8V? That would mean that they probalby didn't do it right. you would need to use an ampmeter, measuring current in amps to find the draw, not voltage.
You can double check them really easily if you have a multimeter, and an hour or so. All you need to do is hook up the meter in series to the battery, and observe the current pull at idle. A couple of mA is normal, anything more though and there is a problem. Start pulling fuses one at a time, and re-installing them one at a time until you notice a change on the meter. If you pull the radio fuse, and the current draw drops, then it is the radio.
My grandfather owns a 99 Caddy Catera w/ a Bose system. I know that it is the single amplifier kind and NOT the kind that has an amp for each indv speaker. The prob is that since he bought the car used 2yrs ago he has been going through batteries like a mad man. He finally just got fed up w/ dealing the caddy dealership morons and took the car into an auto electric shop. They determined that the problem was that there was a constant 8v (yes, 8 volt!!!) draw on the battery when the car was off. They traced the 8v draw back to the factory bose audio system. The problem was that they did not tell us where on the wiring schematic or what part of the audio system was causing the 8v draw.
I understand that 8v is a crazy draw on the battery in and of itself as I am former car audio comp guy. Have any of u heard of a problem like this b4?
As of now, my grandpa is taking the catera into the other caddy dealership on thursday b/c I saw the wiring schematic for this vehicle and nearly fainted. I am used to toyotas and hondas where there are only 2-4 instruments running on 1 circuit whereas, the catera had about 15!!! Any sugestions??? need help b4 my grandpa spends piles of money at the $105/hr caddy dealer...
cheers
Replies (1)
ttocs on 02/2/2005 12:36:26
did they honestly say 8V? That would mean that they probalby didn't do it right. you would need to use an ampmeter, measuring current in amps to find the draw, not voltage.
You can double check them really easily if you have a multimeter, and an hour or so. All you need to do is hook up the meter in series to the battery, and observe the current pull at idle. A couple of mA is normal, anything more though and there is a problem. Start pulling fuses one at a time, and re-installing them one at a time until you notice a change on the meter. If you pull the radio fuse, and the current draw drops, then it is the radio.
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