Cadillac Owners Forum banner
1 - 9 of 9 Posts

· Registered
97 sedan deville
Joined
·
51 Posts
Discussion Starter · #1 ·
Has anyone had an issue with mysterious battery drain on their Deville's? Yesterday everything was fine with no problems. Today, get ready to go and leave somewhere and the battery was completely dead. I don't know what would have caused the battery to drain completely in less than 24 hours. No doors were ajar, no lights on, who knows. Car is a 97 DeVille base. Just had a replacement battery put in less than two months ago as well. After getting the car jumped, drove to the place where replacement battery came from and the guy tested the battery and said it was fine. So not sure what to think.
 

· 1997 Deville base
1997 Deville Base
Joined
·
43 Posts
When I had a parasitic draw I started by checking the draw with a multimeter. Car off disconnect negative and let enough time pass for anything on the retained accessory power to turn off fully. Multimeter measuring amps set it to like 20a (read your instructions might have to change what the red cable is plugged into on the meter might not). Black alligator clipped on ground (disconnected neg batt cable) red clipped on positive batt terminal. Don't turn the headlights on or anything you could blow a fuse. Note your amp draw after it stabilizes. Then start pullin fuses and testing. Pull one at a time and note any change in your amp reading. Pull things like the Pull Down fuse (trunk pull down motor), the Comfort fuse (if it's this one the cd changer is probably at fault), the Amp fuse (cant remember but might only be there if you have bose). Convenience fuse has a lot on it power locks and trunk release and such I cant recall exactly but the trunk light might be on this part of the diagram past the trunk release relay.

There's some others you'll wanna check if nothin turns up but I'd start there. CD Changer sometimes likes to keep the cartridge ejection engaged, I havent looked into a fix wasn't that for me. Keep in mind if you test before the car is "asleep" (retained accessory power lets you do things like have the radio on with the key off for a bit) you will see a higher amp draw than you think you should have, so be sure to wait like 10 minutes after turning off and disconnecting neg terminal. Once you pull a fuse and see a drop in amps you can look up what devices are on that fuse and do some more diagnosing. For me it was the antenna, so to "fix" it I just disconnected the antenna motor and pulled the antenna relay and 20a fuse for it and threw em in my spare electronics baggy in the glove box.

If you need help identifying and finding fuses google cadillac forums 1997 deville fuse relay diagram. You got 2 fuse blocks and some relays drivers side engine and and another fuse block in trunk along with a mess o relays you can only get to by pulling backseat or pulling trunk liner.

Good luck
 

· 1997 Deville base
1997 Deville Base
Joined
·
43 Posts
Thanks rodnok but learned it all here man i'm 30 and didnt know that an intercooler existed a month ago, and thought thermostats were just how you turned your AC on in the house. An FSM or Alldata plus this forum in particular has seriously educated me and saved my family money.

pcdoctor have you looked at your batteries voltage on the dash while in operation btw? Key to on, check, start it, note while starting, note on idle.

And cus I wanted to "learn where everything was" I went and found and cleaned all my grounds scattered around the car while I was at it. With "strange sometimes unrepeatable" battery draws seems like a loose or broken ground sometimes comes into play. "cadillac forums 1997 deville ground location diagram" there's location images and text descriptions in the fsm and also electrical diagrams that indicate where on a circuit the ground sits.

Man I really like this car a lot my old non-srt neon never made me care like this
 

· Registered
1996 Sedan Deville 123.5K, 1997 Deville 91.5K
Joined
·
35 Posts
You've learned a lot in less than a month, Corgi. I'll echo what was said earlier about your advice on troubleshooting/finding a parasitic current draw, well said!
 

· Registered
92 Fleetwood 2dr cpe - FWD, 96 Seville SLS, 02 Seville
Joined
·
1,294 Posts
Older car, older switches relays etc. lots of gunk, stickiness, grime. Result things don't turnoff.

Combine with gm's 12 min courtesy timer that's supposed to save your battery, I find myself double checking things when I turn off my 25+ year old cars.

Check your ignition switch as well. On my older vehicles, there are times when I pull the key, the ignition switch is still engaged at the accessory point or similar. I find I have to consciously turn counterclockwise all the way before trying to pull the key.
 

· Administrator
2002 F55 STS, 2014 Explorer XLT, F-150
Joined
·
80,426 Posts
The 12 Volt power ports may be set to Always ON. Do you have anything plugged in to a port ???

Have you jury-rigged something to a 12 Volt supply line ?
 
1 - 9 of 9 Posts
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top