2004 GMC Yukon..battery dead...3weeks worth of parts...

[swathdiver]

@Big Mama Both of us this time Agreed we do need to buy a Tech2 or +=, We have a 03 Duramax, 04 Yukon & 99 Jeep. Seems like between the 3 it would save us a ton. We have only lived in CA a few years, and don't know many peeps....let alone trustworthy peeps. This forum has been a huge help! Hubby got off late, and tomorrow is his Friday, will be searching to buy a Tech2 and working a little more with the amp meter to rule out the obvious. You & @swathdiver has already been huge helps! This will be "to be continued...."

It won't work on the Jeep, it's a GM specific tool. Unless you did an LS swap or something on the Jeep!

 

[HiHoeSilver]

I think we found what ya'll are talking about Tech2 Scanner on eBay. From China, sold 35. 30-day return policy https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tech2-Diag...hash=item23aa607f88:m:mPMlUUoIr_J_GR4ATq9YgPw Also "states it is the 33.004 software. Switched from Google Chrome to Yahoo...****! Damn near to old to figure some of this stuff out

You can also look here.

Www.chinacardiags.com

Flash sale right now at $285

 

[KatGV]

Hello,

Thank you for this forum. Looks like many others have also had dead battery issues. Which just suck!

I have darn near tried all the tricks, and need a fresh pair of eyes...and brain. Thank you in advance for any suggestions! Here is what I have tried, so far.

Had my cell phone charging, 4th of July, while doing choirs outside. At first, we thought we left one of the doors opened by mistake, jumped the truck, drove around, got home all is well. A few days later, dead battery again. The truck is an 04 GMC Yukon, we bought in 2017. Battery said 04 on it. Changed out the battery...all was well, until a few days later. We also had the "service tire monitor" message. Took the truck down, got 4 new tire monitors, changed out the auxiliary power charger, as that is what my cell was plugged into. AC stopped working on the driver's side, changed out the driver's side HVAC blend actuator. Unplugged alternator, the battery was still charged. Great, we found the problem. Installed a new alternator yesterday...(drove the jeep to work) ..dead battery this afternoon. We have put the voltmeter on it, and nothing seems to stand out as the draw. We actually have 2 voltmeters we are going to double-check everything, right after dinner.
If anyone has any suggestions....it would greatly be appreciated!

I know you just purchased a NEW battery but the ONLY thing that stopped our YEARLY dead battery issues was to purchase an Optima Redtop battery had one on my older 90's Tahoe and now on my 2005.

 

[SnowDrifter]

See if anyone around you has a thermal camera. Let the car sit for a few hours / overnight to get rid of any hot spots. Then start poking. A module or relay turned on will have some heat. Maybe not enough to feel, but enough for the camera to pick up. IMO it makes diagnosing this stuff rather trivial. Just look for the red!

 

[AzDiamondBlue]

Hello All! I hope you had a great weekend! This is Jo. Just wanted to write a quick update. We shopped some this weekend for a Snapon Ethos Pro...found a few on auctions ....meanwhile, we pulled 5 fuses (the process of elimination) and let the Yukon sit overnight. Taking pictures of the ones we had pulled and added a new fuse back in every night, to see if it would start or not start the next day. We have narrowed down the parasitic draw to the (again I am not a mechanic to one of the HVAC fuse and the dash assemble fuse. Meaning, we might have found the cause...as the dash assemble, a few gauges have had a mind of their own. When we moved the Yukon 50 feet under the apple tree so my husband could finish painting, the "check engine" light came on and this was 5 pm last night. Tonight he has a meeting. Tomorrow after work will be the final outcome of our little test. To be continued. @KatGV thanks for the info on the redtop battery. Once we get this little experiment completed, we will look into that! PS The fuse pulling only represents what it powers, as meaning, we know the fuse its good, its what the fuse powers is what we are testing. PS my poor hubby works all the time, he worked 50 hours last week, plus 3 doctor appt for me, chores I can no longer due plus work on the Yukon and finished the painting house. Not bad for a 50++ year old Good guy I think I will keep him

 

[Big Mama]

Pretty good detective work Jo. In all of this have we mentioned your ground cables? When you mentioned the gauges acting up it made me think of that and of course a short somewhere. The cables are known to corrode. Follow it from the battery backwards. If full of crud wire brush until you see metal and use dialectic grease.

 

[Bowtie29]

Just went thru this on my sons 04 Tahoe. Checked amp draw with meter and also by pulling fuse to instrument cluster. Amp draw went away and would come back as soon as plugged fuse back in. There was no issue with the gauges, they worked fine could also hear what sounded like something running when put ear to cluster. This was after car had been off for about 30 min to allow modules to go to sleep. Removed instrument cluster and sent off to have repaired. This took care of the problem. Talked to repair shop and they do about 5-6 of these a week with the parasitic drain.

 

[AzDiamondBlue]

Hello All! @Big Mama @swathdiver I hope this finds you all well!!! What a crazy couple of weeks. Russ is actually a boss for the city, water department...and has been working none stop. We did the process of elimination with the fuses..and are 95% sure it is the dash assembly....causing the parasitic draw. We stumbled across a YouTube.com video about this company https://www.unitedradio.com/automotive-electronics/repair-and-remanufacturing/ face value quote is $175.00 we pay shipping there with a 1-year warranty and return shipping. Our Duramax dash panel will also be shipped to them, as the odometer is English one time and changes to various other languages other times. Then Russ needs a week of vacation to get all of this done! Meanwhile, the scanner 2, got put on hold. We need to add that tool to our collection....but I don't want the responsibility of ordering the wrong one by myself! Thank you very much for all your help this far, I am happy we came across this forum with kind peeps!

 

[AzDiamondBlue]

Pretty good detective work Jo. In all of this have we mentioned your ground cables? When you mentioned the gauges acting up it made me think of that and of course a short somewhere. The cables are known to corrode. Follow it from the battery backwards. If full of crud wire brush until you see metal and use dialectic grease.

Hello @Big Mama ...Yes, thank you for the mention of the ground cable. Russ did clean those up, there was one, slightly questionable, that we replaced.

 

[AzDiamondBlue]

Just went thru this on my sons 04 Tahoe. Checked amp draw with meter and also by pulling fuse to instrument cluster. Amp draw went away and would come back as soon as plugged fuse back in. There was no issue with the gauges, they worked fine could also hear what sounded like something running when put ear to cluster. This was after car had been off for about 30 min to allow modules to go to sleep. Removed instrument cluster and sent off to have repaired. This took care of the problem. Talked to repair shop and they do about 5-6 of these a week with the parasitic drain.

@Bowtie29 ...sounds exactly like our problem! We just found this company unitedradio.com that we will be sending the panel/cluster to....Russ just needs a vacation to get all of this done! Thank you for your reply.