battery drain and rear hatch (latch) issue? (1 Viewer)

[landcruiser3DP]

i'm having an issue with dead batteries.
i have a new one as of about a month and a half ago. as best i can recall - well as far as i remember i got a new battery under the one year warranty at Sam's Club because it was not starting and bad.
then i parked it and went away for two weeks. came back and drove the car (must have started right up). then parked it for a week.
this morning it's dead. it didn't even show any lights and won't jump so i am revving the jump battery in the tacoma (never any problems) and going to try to jump it.
the other item here is i drove for a year with a damaged upper rear hatch. it seemed do latch but since putting in the used replacement it doesn't seem to latch very well.
also i've had a handful of moments where i open the rear hatch at night and like the rear taillights and sidelights and the headlights go on. i aaaumw this has to do with either the mechanism in the drivers side door not recognizing it opened and closed (?) or that there is some issue with the "new" wiring in the upper rear batch or in how they connected it to the harness? anyway i realize this last one is a bit gnarly i just needed to mention it.

some help please:
A. what are the troubleshooting steps here?
B. any ideas on how to pull apart the upper rear hatch connector at the harness so i can inspect it? i guess i just remove the trim on the upper rear hatch or is there more to it?
C. is there a way to "idiot proof" a un-closed upper rear hatch? like can i verify the two interior dome lights are in the middle position and then pull the bulbs from the drivers interior door lamps and reduce the chance the battery will drain?
D. am i right there is a parasitic drain troubleshooting step by step in the electrical manual? if so i will carve some time out for this.

 

[landcruiser3DP]

pics

 

[Rollinns]

I had a battery drain due to the light ring around the ignition key. Digging around here on MUD I found it's commonly caused by a bad module for that ring light located in kick panel beside the passenger foot well. After disconnecting the module the drain disappeared. That module doesn't affect anything else.

Measure your amp draw at the battery when everything is off, and all doors and hatch are closed, then disconnect the module and measure amp draw again. If only the module is bad, the amp draw should drop noticeably, but not to zero.

Not sure if the hatch issue is related or not.

 

[landcruiser3DP]

I had a battery drain due to the light ring around the ignition key. Digging around here on MUD I found it's commonly caused by a bad module for that ring light located in kick panel beside the passenger foot well. After disconnecting the module the drain disappeared. That module doesn't affect anything else.

Measure your amp draw at the battery when everything is off, and all doors and hatch are closed, then disconnect the module and measure amp draw again. If only the module is bad, the amp draw should drop noticeably, but not to zero.

Not sure if the hatch issue is related or not.

thanks man.
i did tro thing yesterday. i turns the two dome lights to ON when door is open. i think (?) front dome light is on when front doors are open and rear dome light is on when rear doors or rear hatch is open?
either way now i will be able to /see/ when the two door lamps are on if i leave ehe rear hatch ajar. i sort of unthinkingly turned the dome lights off at all times but this means i couldn't see when the hatch was open and rear doors lamps were on.
second thing i did is charge the battery overnight.
> am i missing something here? it measured 12.5V. shouidnt it show 14V with a new battery and a full charge? granted it wound down to nothing but shouting it be fully charged after an overnight charging?

 

[tmxmotorsports]

Unplug the factory amplifier behind the front right speaker in the dash next to the glove box

 

[landcruiser3DP]

Unplug the factory amplifier behind the front right speaker in the dash next to the glove box

thanks so much.
i'll check it.
i have an aftermarket stereo i could have mentioned but can i follow up with another question? like is there any good reason to hear like five "meep" sounds for about a five second length of time every five minutes or something? it's kind of a weird faint sound. i noticed this a couple weeks ago for a second or third time but for some reason i'm not hearing it now (which is just weird anyway).

 

[tmxmotorsports]

Only if your watching coyote and road runner

 

[landcruiser3DP]

Only if your watching coyote and road runner

yeah it's like a meep or beep. it's really weird behind the dash and soft...

 

[tmxmotorsports]

yeah it's like a meep or beep. it's really weird behind the dash and soft...

Does it sound like the beep noise when you have the key in the ignition with the vehicle off

 

[Rollinns]

> am i missing something here? it measured 12.5V. shouidnt it show 14V with a new battery and a full charge? granted it wound down to nothing but shouting it be fully charged after an overnight charging?

View attachment 3985043

12.69 shown in the pic is a charged battery, you will only see close to 14v when the engine is running.

 

[ZackR]

thanks man.
i did tro thing yesterday. i turns the two dome lights to ON when door is open. i think (?) front dome light is on when front doors are open and rear dome light is on when rear doors or rear hatch is open?
either way now i will be able to /see/ when the two door lamps are on if i leave ehe rear hatch ajar. i sort of unthinkingly turned the dome lights off at all times but this means i couldn't see when the hatch was open and rear doors lamps were on.
second thing i did is charge the battery overnight.
> am i missing something here? it measured 12.5V. shouidnt it show 14V with a new battery and a full charge? granted it wound down to nothing but shouting it be fully charged after an overnight charging?

View attachment 3985043

In that photo you are measuring voltage. To find how much amperage is being drawn you'll need to disconnect the negative battery cable from the terminal, clamp one lead of the multimeter to the cable and the other to the negative battery terminal. Then move the red lead on the multimeter to the 10A port and set the meter to measure current (A).

Now all of the current will flow through the multimeter (up to 10A then the fuse will blow) so you can see what is draining the battery (checking each circuit, etc). This will be a lot more effective than trying to see a voltage drop since the parasitic load is going to be small enough to not even register a difference in voltage, especially on a good battery. If the parasitic load is really small (less than 400 milliamps) you can use that setting and move the red lead to the 400ma port on the multimeter and set the switch to mA.