Ok so I got into a fender bender about a week ago. It crushed in part of my front bumper and fender on the driver's side. I drove the car home and put it in the garage. Two days later I tried to start it and it appeared the battery was completely dead. There didn't seem to be any power to anything, not the idiot lights, nothing. The battery was just replaced a month ago.

So I jumped the car, let it run for about thirty minutes to charge up, and even turned it off and restarted it again. I drove it back to school (I live in a dorm about 25 minutes from my parents). Then about two days later I get into the car and the battery appears to be dead again. When I put the key in the ignition I get a very very faint version of what you normaly hear when you put the key in. Other than that nothing works just like before. I'm going to go get the battery and alternator tested on saturday.

I suspect it's some sort of short or grounding issue. What is most likely to have been affected on the driver's side? The impact was at maybe 20 miles an hour and it doesn't even look like anything in the engine bay got hit. I didn't even think there was any serious non cosmetic damage. Something must have gotten jarred loose or something right?

 

could be a longshot, but maybe a headlight relay is trying to close/open and that's what's draining your battery?

either way it seems like an extra electrical load could be going through and causing your battery to die...

my .02

 

Impact could have caused a plate inside the battery to come loose and give you an internal short. Replace the battery. Rare on cars, common on motorcycles, but can happen (happened to me on a 5 month old battery).

 

Unplug your headlight motor until you can get the damage repaired...the headlight is out of alignment, and anytime the motor senses it's not in the up or down position (even 1/4 inch out is enough) it tries to move it back...all the time, even when the key is off.

 

Well, before you replace the battery, make sure you use a multimiter to check for an electrical draw.

A cheep (Cheep as in "you dont own/know how to operate/too lazy to buy a multimiter") way to check is just unplug the battery after you stop driving. If it is still dead in the morning you know the battery is at fault. (Unless it didnt charge right to start with, check the voltage the battery puts out right after you disconnect it, and right when you reconnect it)

 

I'm with Kevin, it's happened to me... and I've told at least three people in the past to pull the headlight fuse until the damage is fixed and it's always the problem.

--Gary

 

yeah man, it's your headlights.. .same thing happened to mine after a fender bender, i just unplugged the headlight relay to check it out, although i did go thru like 2 or 3 batteries before i got it all worked out

 

If you have an Ammeter, you can run it inline with the positive terminal. See if load is being drawn.

 

I'll go ahead and do that. The passenger side headlight won't pop up right now because it's caught on the crushed-in bumper. It didn't seem to me that it was affected too much by the accident, as the impact wasn't too deep.

So should I disconnect the motor and then check the battery with an ammeter? How do I confirm that it is indeed the light without waiting a day or two to see if the battery is dead?

 

Ray, I can also relate to your problem, happened to me last year after I hit the deer and messed up the passenger side of the bumper, headlight and other passenger side metal. I had to disconnect the power to that headlight motor to keep it from running constantly and draining the battery. If the damage isn't too bad you might do some body work to free the headlight so that it will extract and retract without rubbing anything especially if you're gonna have to get some body work done there anyway.

I have a multimeter and a battery tester that I can bring to the drive-in tomorrow if you need them. Do you have a good battery charger to bring your battery back up to full charge?

 

Oh and where is the plug for the headlight motor?

 

I'll probably jump start the car saturday, then take it to my house. Then i'll unplug the motor and take it to autozone to get everything tested and the battery charged.

 

Ive seen the exact same thing on two other 7's. Over by the left front shock tower, there is a fuse box. Pull the fuse for the light motors, as Kevin said. On my 90 vert, it is the fuse closest to the drivers side fender.

 

The headlight thing is really a good one. I'd try that first. BUT When I got his in the rear end it made my trunk light stay on all the time. Killed the battery. Couldn't chase down this grimlin until one night with the bumper and rear plate cover off I noticed a light beam coming out of one of the empty license plate holes Vala There it was.