Hello. I just bought a 2001 f150 super cab offroad on thursday(1/20/05). I let it sit all day friday and came home from work and tried to start it and the battery was dead. After i jumped it i saw that the camper shell light was on. I shut it off. Stopped and started the truck sevral times on friday night, all was well. Saturday morning I had to jump it, drove it to work, went out an started it on my break after the truck sat for 2 hours, it started. The truck has got 62k on it and guys at work said that the battery in it was proly the original and the camper shell light running it dead was proly enough to do it in. So i bought a new battery saturday when i got off work. 1100 cold crank amp at 32f and 850 at 0f. the truck started fine the rest of saturday and all through sunday. This morning the new battery was dead. I tried to jump it, but it was too dead. The lights work fine and are bright when i drive it. When i went and test drove the truck it started fine and it was covered with snow so i know that they didnt charge it before i stopped in the truck lot. anybody got a clue whats drawing on the battery or what??!!?? Any thoughts would be greaatly appreciated, Thanks Dustin

 

if you just bought it i would take it back and have the batt,alt,and starter tested. (thats if you bought it from a car lot)also have them test for a battery draw as well.

 

You need to shut everything off in the truck and put an ammeter in series with the battery and see if it draws any current. The computer will draw a VERY tiny amount, but certainly no more than 100 milliAmps. If you see more than 100 milliAmps on your ammeter, start disconnecting things until you find the offending circuit and then troubleshoot that particular circuit.

If there is no significant draw with everything shut off, then crank up the truck and put a voltmeter across the battery with the engine at about 2000 RPM and you should see something like 13.5 to 14.5 volts. If you see less than that, then the alternator is not charging the battery.

Also, it is not unheard of to get a bad battery from the store. Sometimes they set on the shelf long enough to go bad.

Good luck,
Doc

 

Thanks guys. The solenoid was stuck. Both batteries are fine.