redwinee

I bought my first car like two weeks ago from a Used Car dealer where my stepdad worked. Both my stepdad and the mechanic swore by it. It's a 1994 Cavalier.

The battery died last weekend, aka a week after I bought it. The battery was the original one, so it was to be expected, so I bought a new one. Now, a week after that, today, this one is dead. What could be causing it?

a. palmer jr.

You probably have a short in your electrical system. One thing you can do is turn everything off in the car and put a charged battery in it. If you see a fairly large spark coming off the battery cable end when you put the second one on the battery then you have a short. A very small spark might be expected because you can't turn everything off, computer, burglar alarm if you have one, and possibly others,but if you have a large spark and it makes a snapping noise it'll drain your battery. A good place to look for a short on GM cars is the alternator diodes. If you've jumper cabled another car recently that will short the diodes. If you don't have a short in your system you probably just got a defective battery, it happens.

redwinee

Whenever I got out of the driver side after turning the car off, it always shocked me. Would that have to deal with a short in the electrical system as well? I never really thought anything of it before but you mentioned sparks and that reminded me of that, so yeah.

redwinee

It was an electrical problem, but nothing to do with the alternator.

There's a short somewhere in the dome light/automatic locks, so until we can get that fixed, I got the fuse pulled. But it was steadily draining 1 amp of power from the battery. It took a week because the battery was new, and also by running the car, it recharged a little. Just, it happened that it completely died at some point from last night to today.

I'm not exactly sure where the short is, although I suspect it's in the driver's side lock.

But, because the fuse is out, the problem is not a big one at the moment. I just don't have a dome light or auto locks, which I can live without. xD

a. palmer jr.

Don't overlook the little switch on the door that operates the dome light. Those have been known to stick. I have a stuck one on my Cavalier right now, fortunately mine's stuck in the off position.

redwinee

Okay. I'll keep that in mind. My dad said he looked at it and he's pretty sure it's the auto lock on the driver's side though. It's not for sure, so I'll make sure to look at that switch, too.