dicer

Gen 1, what is considered the normal engine off key off, alarm not set, car just sitting amp drain ? I'm getting around .4 amps, battery date is 6/14 so it should be okay I'm giving it a good charge and will check it. Glove box has been locked up and the light doesn't work anyway, trunk light has been removed for months, and it just did this dead battery deal since a week ago Friday.

KJG92

I went thru this and did a test and got .5 and was told that was normal. We had the same problem before replacing ours. The auto parts tester said the battery was within range. I begged to differ. A 800cca battery is no good at 396cca charged. But since the computer did not say replace I told the guy at advance auto parts I will never buy more than car wash at this chain ever again. The battery was only a year old. Got a Napa gold and the car has been a different car the last few months.

Yamae

.4A is too much. Should be less than .03A after computers closing procedures were all finished.

dicer

Thank you Yamae. I must have something connected to create the drain.

dicer

Okay with a good charged battery, the drain settles out at .262 amps.

Yamae

It is still 10 times more than the normal. You need to find out what is causing that much of current.

Every line has at least 1 fuse except the starter motor line and you can check the drain at fuses. It would be quicker if you had a good multimeter which can read down to 100uV. Without removing fuses, you can check which line is consuming the battery power measuring the dropping voltages at fuses.

For an example, if the drain is .2A at a 10A fuse line, the voltage drop would be around 2000uV because a 10A fuse has a resistance about 10mΩ in most Toyota cars. In case of a 30A fuse the resistance would be 3-4mΩ and still you can read 600-800uV.

dicer

So the very first fuse I pulled dropped it to .015 amps. I pulled the 10amp Dome fuse before I came here and saw your post.

dicer

Its still a learning process on these cars for me. So what the problem is, I observed in the dark (lights out in garage), that the working courtesy light on the passenger side was on, as well as the driverside door key light.
So there is the drain. But why? About a week ago I removed the driver door inside panel to see about bending some dents out and fixing the key switch. It just so happens that the door panel has a contact area, (I think its a small plastic pad held on with a screw that also holds the panel on) that pushes on the b pillar switch for dome lights etc. So since its not pushing it the light stays on.