parasitic current draw?

[rdleg05]

I am chasing what seems to be a parasitic current draw on the 09 Legacy 2.5i Limited that my daughter drives.

 

Two days ago, she went to start the car and we had a no crank condition. Starter would click, but no crank. Put battery on a fast 50amp charge to see if the battery needed to be charged. No change after two hours--no crank with starter only clicking. Finally got car to crank and start by jump starting from my trusty 97 Legacy GT.

 

Using a test light, in series with the negative battery post and negative cable, the test light lights-up showing a current draw. Then using a multimeter testing for voltage drop across the fuses in engine bay and the fuses under driver side panel (see YT video from Humblemechanic on parasitic draw) I read no voltage draw. Hmm......

 

Yesterday, I took battery to Advance Auto to test and it tested ok with no dead cells indicated or reduced cranking amps. Original battery under warranty--so i changed it out for new battery (35-1 series with 550 cranking amps), let it slow charge while I was at work today and installed. Again checked for current draw with the test light and it lights up (yes to current draw); then I go back and check all fuses and get no indication of voltage reading.

 

 

So currently trying to do more research into diagnosing the condition. Last thing I need is to let her drive car with a parasitic current draw and force a no crank condition or have to go and jump start the car.

 

 

rdleg05

[subisubisu]

In tracing a parasitic draw a couple of months ago on my Acura, I used the multimeter in series with the negative battery post to cable and pulled and replaced fuses one by one until finally the current flow went to zero (well, tiny; there's some stuff that will always pull a bit of current, but not like a failed part will). That identified the circuit, at least. Before I got to the culprit, one of the fuse pulls made the current flow wobble, but the circuit with the bad part had the fuse that made it go straight to zero and stay there when pulled.

[NORULZleggy]

I know man Legacy & Outbacks have this problem and it is that dang cd changer in the dash. My 06 Outback has this type of issue and was killing the battery. after researching it, it was the all in one HVAC radio system. If you do not have that then it is something else.

[rdleg05]

update--the saga continues:

 

so based off subisubisu's reply I received, I did the following: I put test light in series with negative pole and negative battery cable and pulled every fuse. There was still current being drawn as test light was still lit. Then just for the heck of it, I put the multimeter in series measure milliamperes and it read zero. At first it read about 10 milliamps then it reduced/read 0 in 10 seconds.

 

So now a little confused now: multimeter reads 0, but the test light shows current by lighting up.

 

NORULZleggy--i have the a/c control that is not the auto control system with temperature/one control. I put a cd in and loaded it and then ejected it. nothing hung up there. With pulling the fuses, one by one and then checking for current I guess I isolated the radio/ac system.

 

 

more research and diagnosing to continue tomorrow as we had a thunderstorm suddenly come up and force me inside and then it got dark....