I'm having an electrical problem with my 1998 Cadillac Deville Concours, I have a parasitic battery drain. Over night it will kill the battery. Hooking up an amp meter in line with the negative battery terminal I am reading a 3.6 amp draw that occassionally spikes up to 3.8 amps. I started pulling fuses and I found 2 that account for the draw. This is the fuse box in the trunk, 1 was labled antenna and the other comfort. The owners manual says the comfort fuses is for things like the RKE (remote keyless entry). With the 2 fuses out the current draw drops down to .02 amps. Anyone have any ideas?

You've found the two circuits causing your problem. Now the next thing is check the individual units. Pull the antenna motor connector and look for a drop in your draw. Tha same thing with your RKE and whatever else is on that 'comfort' fuse. I have seen on other cars where a lock motor would stick and cause a draw nearly that large. You sound like you're in the right direction- you just need to keep narrowing it down.

I finally had a chance to play with the car some more. I unplugged each component on the package tray behind the back seat and monitored the battery drain, none of them made any difference in the draw.

One thing I did notice is that when I remove or install the "comfort" fuse I hear a little pop from the speakers. Could it be something to do with the delayed exit feature where the radio stays powered up until you open a door? I believe I read a couple other posts about cars similar to mine where they had a parasitic draw and had to have the radio replaced. My wife also swears she hears a slight hissing sound all of the time inside the car when it is off and nothing is suppose to be on, not sure if it is static or a vacuum sound. Perhaps its static from some part of the radio still being powered up.

There is a service bulletin on parasitic battery drain on this model but unfortunately cadillac doesn't give free access to the report, the TSB number is 02-06-03-010 OCT 02, anyone familiar with this?

I finally gave up trying to track down the source of my battery drain so I called the local Caddy dealer, its currently in being looked at, I'll post their findings once I get them.

Update: The Caddy dealer says there is nothing wrong with the car, they can't find this draw I am talking about, they are blaming it on a bad battery. They want to replace the battery to the toon of $185. But once I stressed to them that with the fuses in battery goes dead in 4 to 6 hours, fuses out battery stays up just fine. I've been doing this ritual for over a week now and battery stays up just fine. They even said it was showing a full charge. Currently they are trying to reproduce the problem, car is sitting in the shop fuses in and they are going to let it sit for at least 4 hours before attempting to start it.

Now that I'm thinking about it, it seems to me there was a problem Cadillac reported to all of the participants in the Master Coachbuilder program, which where I worked at the time was a member of. I am fuzzy on the details, but it seemed to me there was a battery drain problem on the telephone wiring, which I think was on the 'Comfort' fuse. It made no difference if you have that option on your car or not. For us, it was no problem to fix if we encountered it (I never did) because we were tearing into the cars to turn them into limos- or, in my case, hearses- anyway. Cadillac would just pay us for the fix. I know it was on a TSB for the commercial chassis cars- I don't know about the public sale cars. It's something to ask the dealer about, but I can't say if this is applicable to a 5 year old car, or if this stuff was happening right off the line. Whenever I wired a hearse, I always removed all the phone wiring (after all- who are they gonna call? Ghostbusters?) and capped the power lines, so I never had a problem


Updated info: I couldn't find the TSB you referred to, but I DID find a pertinent campaign bulletin for you- #97054. This refers to cars with the 'base' radio and no CD changer. There is a 10A draw with this setup. Now, this only applies to certain '98 Devilles and Eldorados, but the dealer should be able to figure if your car applies. This certainly beats the dealer saying "Can't fix it- replace the battery", and is more in line with what you've read and your wife has heard. I will say one thing about the battery- if it's the original OEM one, it probably is time to replace it, but 185.00 is a bit steep. However, removing that particular battery is a lot of fun [/sarcasm].

Hotrod thankyou for the info, I'm still going round and round with the dealer on this. The battery is not original, its an 84 month battery and it only 38 months old. The $185+tx price included 1 hour of labor where they said they could find nothing wrong. The tech even told me the battery tested good on their tester, just the computer had a failure code on it. They wouldn't even honor the AC delco warranty on the battery, shouldn't I have gotten a pro-rated credit on a replacement since it only lasted half its quoted life span?
Also, the car does have the factory sell phone, and it does a stereo without CD changer, but I'm not sure if it is a Bose.

I was so frustrated by them and I was not going to drive away without getting some satisfation so I braught my own test rig and multi-meter with me when I went to picked up the car. I hooked it up in their parking lot and it showed a 3.8 amp load. I then got them to send the tech out so he could see that was what was killing the battery, he response was that my test wasn't valid (this guy wasn't the brightest bulb in the box) and something about the computer aways drawing power, I explained yes but not 4 amps worth, 4 amps will easily kill a battery over night.

So they charged me an hours labor and accomplished nothing except to try and sell me a battery I didn't need. I wonder if this is standard operating proceedure, keep a customer coming back selling him parts he doesn't need thereby keeping the shop busy and making lots of cash?

Anyways... the car is going back on Monday, they said something about putting a higher tech on it next time. I'm leave a note for him just like I did for the 1st tech explaining my findings and how the speakers hiss and they give an audible power thump when the comfort fuse is pulled, I'll also include the reference number Hotrod gave. I feel like I have this narrowed way down already, I can't believe the Caddy dealer couldn't see what is so obvious, unless they just haven't fleshed out the bill enough yet.

Not only does it seem like they're trying to pad your ticket, the unfortunate thing about this is most techs- regardless of speciality- anymore are just glorified parts-changers. There's no skill to saying your battery is bad- finding out why is where the rub lay. I've been doing this for a long time, and even though I know very little in the way of Cadillac procedures, codes, ect., I know enough to know that if a battery tests good, you can pretty well eliminate that from your list of problems. It really cheeses me off to know that a dealer is trying to get away with that crap- all they had to do was put their so-called number one guy on it in the first place, not some second stringer who needs his hand held. It's not a common problem, and some kid 2 months out of high school isn't going to find it. Hell, if I hadn't remembered that coachbuilder problem on the then-current '98s, I wouldn't have even a clue to look for that Campaign Bulletin. I don't know where you live, but it sounds to me you need to find another dealer- one who actually gives a damn about service. :rant2:

OK- breathe.

I do think you should have gotten a pro-rate on the battery- do you have the warranty paper and the receipt? The other question is where you bought the battery. If you bought it somewhere other than the dealer, you may be out of luck anyway, unless you can produce the old battery. For your radio, If you don't have the factory CD changer, it likely isn't the Bose system. Look on the faceplate, you should see a little Bose emblem. The 3.8 amp load you see is simular to the one described in the Bulletin. Ya know, all the tech has to do to eliminate the radio is simply unplug it- it's not rocket science. :annoyed:

A 95 Deville Concours isn't real close to your car, but it killed 2 batterys quickly, the second one a new one. Caddy dealer then looked closer at it, especially since it was under an extended Certified warranty and they probably didn't want to put a new battery in it every week.

They replaced the radio (AM/FM/Cassette/Single CD).

And that fixed the problem....

I'm having an electrical problem with my 1998 Cadillac Deville Concours, I have a parasitic battery drain. Over night it will kill the battery. Hooking up an amp meter in line with the negative battery terminal I am reading a 3.6 amp draw that occassionally spikes up to 3.8 amps. I started pulling fuses and I found 2 that account for the draw. This is the fuse box in the trunk, 1 was labled antenna and the other comfort. The owners manual says the comfort fuses is for things like the RKE (remote keyless entry). With the 2 fuses out the current draw drops down to .02 amps. Anyone have any ideas?

I have a 98 Edorado that had a similiar problem which caused the battery to drain when the car set for several days. The Eldorado should draw less than 30 milliamps when it is shutdown.
I noted that the current draw would cycle to about 1.5 amps approximately every 60 seconds. I explained this to the dealer after I had traced the problem down to removal of comfort fuse cleared up the problem. I was told that the problem was caused by the cellular telephone module (On-Star). Rather than spend the $600 to replace and reprogram the On-Star system, I had the dealer leave the power off the module. All other functions still work and the problem disappeared.
Maybe this will help.

I got my car back from the Caddy dealer yesterday, their head tech tracked the problem down to a bad amplifier. This the big amp that is located in the trunk behind the back seat. He said the amp is staying powered up all the time and that accounts for the draw. I already knew the amp was staying powered up because it was always warm, and I mentioned the hiss from the speakers when everything was off, and when you pulled the fuse you could hear the speakers thump. However, I assumed it was something else like the RAP (retained accessory power) module that was keeping it powered up. I suppose it could be the problem but I am still a little skeptical.

The dealer wants $1022 to replace the amplifier. I said no for now, paid them for another 1 hour labor and took my car. Right now I am attempting to locate a used amp. I called a place that repairs this type of item but they told me that this particular amp is a "pitch" item, ie. throw it away and buy a new one, because the amp integrates with the cars computer there is no way to fix and bench test it. A used one does make me nervous but I suppose I have to take the gamble because the part alone sells for $949.08 + tax, and I suppose a reputable junk yard should guarantee the part as being good or not.

I'll continue to post my progress just incase anyone is interested.
Thankyou for everyones help so far.

Sounds like you found the problem. Just wanted to let you know that my 98 Concours (with Onstar) also makes the noise you described out of the stereo speakers when the power is off and mine does not have any type of battery drain problem.

The way we left this the caddy dealer said the stereo amplifier was bad. Not wanted to pay their $1022 estimate for the repair I hunted the world over and was finally able to locate a used amp. I installed it and guess what, it wasn't the problem. My Caddy dealer is 0 for 2 in diagnosing the problem. I'm extremely disappointed about this. So far I've shelled out $170 in labor to the dealer for 2 mis-diagnosis, another $174 for a used amplifier that I didn't need, and my car is still broken. What if I had paid the $180+tx for the new battery (diagnosis 1) and the $1022+tax for a new amplifier? (diagnsis 2) Does the dealer do this stuff on purpose just to see what they can milk out of you?

I so mistrust the dealer now and couldn't stomach bringing it back for a 3 try that I played some more myself this weekend. I ended up pulling every connector I could find associated with the factory cell phone and the draw seems to have pretty much gone away. If I'm reading the meter right it still looks like I have a 100 milliamp draw which is still excessive, but its a whole lot better than 3.5 amps I had. I still have to play some more because now my power antenna doesn't work but everything else seems okay.

Should I complain to Caddy? Do I have any recource here?
I can't understand how they could diagnose and sell me almost $1500 worth of repairs and still not fix the problem. How much more would they have ran it up to? The real kicker here is that this car is only 4 months or 7000 miles out of warrantee. If it had still been under warantee I could care how many parts they replaced on Caddy's dime.

....
I so mistrust the dealer now and couldn't stomach bringing it back for a 3 try that I played some more myself this weekend. I ended up pulling every connector I could find associated with the factory cell phone and the draw seems to have pretty much gone away. If I'm reading the meter right it still looks like I have a 100 milliamp draw which is still excessive, but its a whole lot better than 3.5 amps I had. I still have to play some more because now my power antenna doesn't work but everything else seems okay....


Your 100 ma draw might not be excessive.

My Seville drops to 200 ma after about 3 to 4 minutes with all doors closed.

And my S-10 truck drops to 90 ma after a few minutes.

Totally different vehicles from your Deville, but, these levels of battery load has not been a problem. The truck sometimes sits for weeks and always cranks right up. The Seville battery is approaching 7 years old.

Good luck finding your problem. Please keep us informed.

I feel your pain man. Listen the same thing is happening in my 99 deville. It came down to the comfort fuse. When my car sits, I can't get no power in the car. What I do is remove the fuse and put it back in and my power works again. Its crazy. The local dealer said nothing I wrong with my care, everything is fine but it never acts up at the dealer. I have the stock radio, no cd changer edition. It is so annoyinh. Please keep me up dated on what you do because I want this resolved. Mitchellandness7@aol.com or bronxbomber@tmail.com