Hi. I have a 1992 Town & Country. After having my battery drain excessivly, I replaced it thinking the battery was bad. The new battery does the same however. I took it to a shop a few months back, and they said there is a constant ~10 Amp draw on the battery. They tried almost everything but couldn't find the problem at the time. I haven't had time to bring it back yet, and must disconnect the battery every night so I can drive the next day.

There are two wires hooked to the positive terminal on the battery. One has a built-in coupler, and disconnecting that stops the drain on the battery. It does not affect the vehicle if I disconnect it while it is on, but if it is off when the wire is disconnected, I lose all electrical functions. None of the fuses stop the drain on the battery if pulled out.

Just before I left the shop, they said they think it could be the Body Control Module, either defective or badly grounded.

Does anyone have similar prior experience with such an issue? And could this also possibly cause the radio to have insufficient power to run the cassette eject mechanism? I bought a replacement radio because my cassette wasn't behaving, and the replacement radio will not eject the cassette tray.

 

there are ways of finding battery drains but if u are asking this on here u need to take it to a shop and have them look at it. The thing is 15 years old anything is possable

 

I would most definitely NOT be replacing the BCM until they've DETERMINED it is causing your bad ground. Yes, it does sound like a grounding issue, but blindly pointing at the BCM is like playing russian roulette IMO.

There's nothing worse than a mechanics shop that likes to go on an easter egg hunt using your money. I would take it somewhere else and ask them how they plan to find the problem. If you don't like the answer (doesn't appear to be an organized and methodical approach), I'd leave and take it somewhere else. They're hard to find, but you have to find someone who actually WANTS to find the problem. At least it's not an intermittent problem that can't be duplicated. It drives some mechanics crazy to not be able to find the problem, and they make it a personal quest to track it down. That's the kind you want working on your vehicle. If you find one like that, however, don't **** them off by bitching about cost, as good work takes time and costs money (This assumes that they're not just shot-gunning parts at it).

The alternative? Spend LOADS of time trying to trace down circuits yourself, with the help of a good schematic. I would install an amp meter between the positive battery cable and the positive battery terminal in order to test the current drainaftereach fuse is pulled. If as you mentioned none of the fuses change the drain, then my next step would be to figure out where the un-fusedwire goes and try to start removing branches of that circuit where possible (while leaving the fused wire disconnected). These electrical gremlins are difficult to be sure. Once you find some majorcircuit that seems to be related to the problem, it really stretches those cranial fibers playing the "what if" game on the schematics(what would happen if THIS circuit was shorted to ground - DON'T ACTUALLY DO THIS, just think about what could happen) tohome in on the actual problem. Good luck if you go this route - make sure you take many sanity breaks and your patience is topped up before you start.

Chad