2003 Yukon Speakers went dead then battery drained

West 1 said:

My 2003 Yukon 130,000 miles on it acted up. I have had this truck a long time and it has been very reliable. I installed dual batteries in it many years back because I worked weekends up in Lake Tahoe in the winter and the extra battery power always allowed this truck to start even in very cold weather.

Last week I drove it, all was perfect and then the speakers quit working? This does have the Bose system in it but no AMP as far as I know. I had a 2001 Denali before this and the sound was better with the AMP option.
I did not worry much about the speakers going out all at once. The radio still lighted up, all controls except sound still worked, I could even change volume but no sound came out. No bid deal.

Two days later I went to drive this truck and it would not start, batteries were very close to dead? This truck sometimes sits for 2 months without driving and it always starts fine with dual batteries. Both were replaced 2 years ago so they are not old and both are rated 800 amp so this truck has plenty of juice normally.

So I charged both batteries on a slow charge for a full day. Truck started up normally, RADIO speakers are working again???

I checked the AMP draw and was getting 117 MA. I unplugged the only external device a phone charger plug, the MA dropped to 99 or 100 MA, kept bouncing between the two.

I think the truck should sleep with around a 50 MA draw? Is this correct?

I do have a trailer brake controller that has lights lit full time, I did not search for the fuse for this unit to unplug it so it was still active, maybe this unit is maybe 50 ma of this draw? The brake controller has been in place for over 5 years now.

OK, so my question would be is the 100 MA draw normal?

I suspect the speakers going dead and the battery draining are connected since they happened at the same time.

After a full charge It sat overnight, no charging done since yesterday. I had 12.7 V at the center console cigarette lighter on start up. Jumps to 14V as soon as the truck is started. Radio speakers were still working again?

I should share the instrument cluster failed about 6 months ago and I had it fully rebuilt, everything on it has been perfect since then.

I did replace the Automatic Heater control with a Dorman unit about 2 months ago and it seems to work fine. (the lights are too bright compared to the OEM unit)

Is there a common cause of this type failure? I do not wish to destroy 2 near new batteries with an amp draw issue.

Thanks for any experience you can share.

Mark

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West 1 said:

Final Wrap: Truck is now fixed, battery drain is repaired.
Tracking this issue I found my dual battery system buffered me finding the issue. Parked in the garage with everything fully shut down I found it was draining the 2 800 amp batteries about .15 volts every 6 hours. So 12.8 would drop to 12.65 and continue to drop. The truck started fine even after sitting a week so catching this issue did not happen till the truck sat longer with no use.
The voltage draw seemed to be .100-.110V. Amp draw was hard to establish since other issues kept waking things up. But most of the time it was showing an amp draw of 1.06 amps.

I removed the instrument cluster and found no change at all with it un plugged. Removed the Radio, no change. Removed the HVAC control, an automatic unit with the dual HVAC temp control and the voltage draw fell to .024 amp draw.

This sounds easy to find but I wasted a lot of time chasing an issue with much higher draw while testing. I found when I removed the instrument cluster I had bumped the Emergency Flasher button down activating the flashers. Since the battery was disconnected they were not on but all my tests were coming up with far too much amp load and my meter was cutting out? Eventually I hooked up the battery ground again and started looking for any items active and found that one.

Next I started to re install each unit looking for problems. Instrument panel reinstalled. Amp draw jumped way up, 1.3 amps or so for maybe 45 seconds and then fell to .024 amps. Good
Plugged in the Radio, amps jumped way up then came down to .024, Perfect.
Installed the HVAC control. Amps jumped way up again and slowly came down to .086 AMPS? Why not .024? I tried it again, same result?

After reading the mixed reviews on the Dorman HVAC part I kept my OEM unit so I still had it for a test. PS: the only reason for buying the Dorman was my dials on the HVAC control were going wonky. Turn it from 68* trying to go up to 72* and it would drop to 60* or any other number but what I was trying for. While I had it out I removed both knobs, sprayed each with Electrical cleaner and rotated each several times. That is all I did. Now the OLD HVAC unit is working like new. Dang, wish I had done this first and saved a ton of money and time.

Installed my old HVAC control and the Amp draw jumped up again, over 1 amp draw. Then it came down after maybe 45 seconds to .026. Not the .086 amp the Dorman was pulling.

In the middle of these tests I was getting screwy numbers again and wasted time because I did not realize that when I turned the key to lower the gearshift pulling the instrument cluster I had the door lock pushed closed even though the door was fully open. The computer thought the door was closed so it kept the radio on when I removed the key. I did not realize this till I noticed I could read the time on the clock with the key removed. Once I figured this out and got the computer to shut down the radio all the numbers looked good or at least read properly.

With everything back together I was seeing some amazing numbers. Fully asleep the Amp draw is now showing ,006 amps draw. The Voltage drop that was 100+ MV is now showing only 3.1MV. That is so low I really don't trust it but I double checked and that is it.

Radio and speakers working fine. The Dorman unit had been installed since August. I guess I was driving this truck enough to keep it charged. Once it sat a couple weeks I had a dead battery. OF course, no return after 4 months use. Damn. The instrument cluster rebuilt last year is working perfectly. The guy must have done a great job.

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