Battery draining in HOURS!

[BOOSTTT]

Hello. I'm new on here. 2nd Porsche. 03 996 turbo. I just bought this wonderful machine, but have a major battery drain. It is pulling 317 milliamps when parked!!! My multimeter is nearly melting when I tested the drain....Neg battery post to ground.... and had a huge draw from the battery. I have a brand new battery, but it's dead in just hours. 2 batteries, in fact, both drained quick. The alt. seems to be fine. Any "common areas I should check first?" Thanks

[deepblue5280]

I have a couple questions.. does your battery drain while the car alarm is armed or not? Porsches will drain battery, albeit over time, when the alarm is not armed, the way it was explained to me is that the DME was still processing. the 2nd question is if there is any aftermarket electronics installed? new stereo, amp, radar detector etc.

First areas I would check are the battery cables that attach to the terminals, make sure they arent worn and shorted on anything, Id sya trunk and engine light but that wouldnt drain the battery that quickly.

Hello. I'm new on here. 2nd Porsche. 03 996 turbo. I just bought this wonderful machine, but have a major battery drain. It is pulling 317 milliamps when parked!!! My multimeter is nearly melting when I tested the drain....Neg battery post to ground.... and had a huge draw from the battery. I have a brand new battery, but it's dead in just hours. 2 batteries, in fact, both drained quick. The alt. seems to be fine. Any "common areas I should check first?" Thanks

[Loren]

Hello. I'm new on here. 2nd Porsche. 03 996 turbo. I just bought this wonderful machine, but have a major battery drain. It is pulling 317 milliamps when parked!!! My multimeter is nearly melting when I tested the drain....Neg battery post to ground.... and had a huge draw from the battery. I have a brand new battery, but it's dead in just hours. 2 batteries, in fact, both drained quick. The alt. seems to be fine. Any "common areas I should check first?" Thanks

Normal is 40 to 60 ma.

Pull fuses one at a time until the draw drops significantly. That fuse will be the circuit where the problem is.

[BOOSTTT]

I was pulling the fuses, but stopped after about 5 because the wires on my meter were burning hot, so I stopped.

I do have a full stereo syst. Just installed a new Kenwood GPS, but was draining prior to that. I made sure my remote switch to the amp only turned on when the ignition was turned on, but I guess I could disconnect the amp to see if the drain decreases. Amp was in when I bought the car.

I actually do get a little less drain with the alarm on, but still kills my battery in under 6 hours. I could not even keep it charged with my battery tender running at 1.5 amps. Still dead in the morning. I went up to a 2.0 amp charger and got up to 12.46 volts over 2 days, but goes up to 13.36 when the battery is out of the car.

I have heard the alarm shorts sometimes because of water getting in it through the horn???? Funny..When I arm the alarm/door locks, it honks only about 1 out of 20 times??....like when it is on the charger only. Horn sounds normal when driving though. Could there be gremlins running around in there? :-)

I'm glad to be back in the Porsche community!!! It's been a few years. Been building a 300ZX Twin Turbo that is flawless in every way. 547 RWHP and 563TQ. The porsche turbo is my dream car though. hope I can find this drain so I can take it to work and have it start when it's time to go home. LOL

[Ahsai]

...When I arm the alarm/door locks, it honks only about 1 out of 20 times??....like when it is on the charger only.

Our alarm is silent. If it honks when you arm the car, it means the car has detected any of the following is still not closed: doors, front trunk, rear lid, your arm rest lid. Have you pulled the engine compartment light and the front trunk light to make sure those are not draining the battery?

[BOOSTTT]

That explains why it honks when it's charging, as the trunk is open. The trunk light does eventually go off on it's own when the car sits for a few min.s. I can see the door lights go out as well. I will do more testing this wk. end. I really want to find this so I can move on to the intermediate shaft bearing next. $2200 sound normal? Is it really difficult to do yourself. I have much experience with most cars, but not so much with the 996. Thanks for your replies!

[BOOSTTT]

Found the source. Pulled the Alternator plug and parisitic drain dropped from around 310-320mA drain to only 30mA's. Stayed that way for over and hour now. Thanks for all your input.