I am having a serious problem with my 1994 Camaro. If the car is not driven within a few days, the battery is completely drained. I have been through two diehard silver batteries and two autozone gold batteries. The car has an alarm (with keyless entry), remote start (which doesn't work), and a truck mounted CD changer, other than that it is bone stock. I'm not sure what kind of shop to take it to to find out what is killing the batteries. I took the 2nd autozone one out today and it will not charge, it is reporting a bad cell. The battery is less than one month old and only driven twice. If driven everyday, the alternator appears to keep it charged enough.

Any help would be appericated.

 

What will not charge? The alternatoris not putting out a charge? Since the battery dies when the car is just sitting it sound like one of the two items you mentioned may be staying on all the time. Either the CD changer is staying on or the alarm may be shorting out your system and/or on also. That would be my first guess. I had a amp that went bad it the same thing happened. It played just fine when the radio was on but the car would sit it drained the battery. Also check the dome light and thing related. If that's not the case then you may have a short and you'll need to get the car into the shop. Lets' hope that it's the first option!! Good luck.

 

Do you have access to a mulit-meter? If so you can start the car and let it run. Check the voltage at the battery terminals, it should be anywhere from 13-15v while running. If not your alternator isn't charging the battery properly. Next step if it's good is disconnect thenegative cable from the battery and connect the multi-meter in series, negative lead to the post, and positive to the cable. Set the DMM to measure amperage. DO NOT START THE CAR, or you will blow the DMM or an internal fuse if it has one. Don't even leave the key in the ignition. Check to see how much amperage is being drawn while the car is sitting, the reading should be lower than the batteries reserve capacity divided by 4. If it is, the battery is internally faulted. If not, start pulling one fuse at a time and observe the amperage draw. When the amperage draw falls within spec when you remove a fuse, that circuit is faulted. If you have any other questions after you test it let us know.

 

Are youbolting the battery down? There is no electrical issue that can cause a non-defective battery to go bad in one month. This is not a deep cycle battery. It is not designed to be drained dead then recharged but doing it 30 or 40 times would not kill a brand new battery.

Larger voltage spikes or huge static build up could effect your battery but it would fry the contorler and moduals long before it hurt the battery. Anything that would damage your battery would play havic on all you onboard processors. All you can do is test your charging system as stated above get anew battery (it should be free).You cando a draw test as stated above.
Batterys do have defects getting one is common, getting two is unlikely, 3very rary 4 would be about equal to being hit by lightning. Oh and with your luck do not go out during any storms.

 

if everything that was posted fails, bring it to a electrical shop, have them work through it, you may have something that has shorted to power or ground, re-check you alternator by putting the positive lead of the dmm on the positive going to the battery from the alternator, and it should read around 14V, a little less is fine, and have the negative lead on the positive battery post, the car must be running while you are doing this, try that out one more time just so you might not have to go through the hassle of checking every wire in the car, good luck, let us know what happens.