I have a 1996 Toyota Celica and have trouble keeping the battery charged. This is my third battery in 3 years and the most recent one I installed is a heavy duty battery. After parking the car for 8 days, the battery is drained and needs charging. I suspected that I had some type of drain on the battery. I took it to my mechanic who ran an ammeter to check the various fuses. He said that the am2 fuse was registering 130 on his ammeter when the security alarm was connected. All of the other fuses were registering acceptable levels. I thought that the am2 fuse was for the ignition switch and starter. Would an after market security alarm be wired through the same fuse? Will replacing the security alarm fix this battery drain? I also have a 1200 watt amp in my trunk, but the mechanic said that it was not pulling a lot of amps. Thanks for your advice!
Alarms do not connect to the starter, but to the ignition wires from your switch. It is probably a bad alarm. You can test by removing the fuse for the alarm unit and checking your amperes then. Usually on older cars I see around 30-40 Ma.
A Bosch/Now Tyco relay will draw around 160 Milliamps. If the alarm is equipped with a starter kill function, there may be a relay wired incorrectly. Find the alarm brain and follow the wires to see if any of them go to a relay. If youi find the relay unplug it and see if the current draw goes away. If it does go away, it will be a simple fix. Let me know what you find out.
With the relay unplugged, the car will not start, drive to the mechanic before you remove the relay.
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Let's Go Brandon Brown. Congratulations on your first Xfinity Series Win. LGBFJB
So, the security system I have is an Audiovox from 1996. Is 137 milliamps an acceptable amount for this system to draw? My mechanic tested the am2 fuse with the security system connected and it measured 137 on the ammeter. When the security system was disconnected, the fuse was only drawing 20-30 milliamps.