Could Your Car Battery Be Subject To A Vampire Draw?
If you've replaced the battery on your car or truck once too often and you're certainly not getting as much value for money as you should, you will surely want to find out why. If you're using the correct model for your vehicle and are an average road user, you may have to suspect something known as a "vampire draw." What is this, how can it cause problems and what should you do?
Thirsty Vampire
Modern-day cars and trucks are highly sophisticated and have a range of electronic devices on board. Many of these devices will only activate when the vehicle is in motion, but some of them will work away in the background even when not. Of course, your vehicle is designed to maximise efficiency and cope with the demands of all these different devices, but you can expect knock-on effects if something goes wrong. In your case, one or more of these electronic devices may be still active even when it is not supposed to be. It may be drawing power from your battery when the engine is switched off instead.
Sitting Around
Most vehicle owners will only use their car or truck for a short amount of time per day. Indeed, one survey found that the average driver would only travel around 38 km per day. Therefore, it should be no surprise that the vehicle sits around for the majority of a 24 hour day, and if a thirsty onboard app is draining power from your power unit, then the battery is certainly working a lot harder than it should be.
Overcharged
As you can imagine, a car battery that requires a lot of charging when it is reactivated may not last as long as one that doesn't. This may explain why you have to change your battery as often as you may be. After all, as an average motorist, you may not be spending a lot of time on the road, towing any vehicles or putting your battery under added stress.
Additional Evidence
Sometimes, you may even notice that the battery appears to be flat when you try to start each morning, resulting in the odd "jumpstart." Again, this shows that you may have a vampire draw problem to consider.
Finding Out More
One way to check is to connect one lead of a digital multimeter to the negative terminal of your battery. While somebody else removes the main fuses one at a time, you can check the multimeter to look for a reading fluctuation. That should point to the gadget in question or at least to the associated circuit. Alternatively, take the vehicle to a mechanic, and they will check on the condition of the battery and do the research for you.