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06 silverado dead battery issue

Printed From: the12volt.com
Forum Name: Car Security and Convenience
Forum Discription: Car Alarms, Keyless Entries, Remote Starters, Immobilizer Bypasses, Sensors, Door Locks, Window Modules, Heated Mirrors, Heated Seats, etc.
URL: https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp?tid=117366
Printed Date: April 23, 2024 at 4:24 AM


Topic: 06 silverado dead battery issue

Posted By: hatchetman337
Subject: 06 silverado dead battery issue
Date Posted: October 30, 2009 at 7:36 PM

Hi folks,

I have an 06 Silverado 1500 and I had a remote starter installed last fall. The dealer I went through is a friend of mine who I've known for years and who's been installing for longer.

Anyway, he installed a 2-way remote starter/alarm for me (I'm not sure who makes it because they order them direct from the manufacturer) and it works fine, but every so often my battery goes dead. It never happened before the starter was installed and also didn't happen all summer long when I wasn't using the remove starter, but this fall again, as soon as I started using the remote starter, the battery went dead. It doesn't happen every time. It's been 1 out of 6 days this past week. He's looked at it a couple times for me and replaced the brain and the interface unit. Today, I drove it on lunch at work, parked it, and when I was leaving work 4 hours later, it was dead again.

Has anyone else come across a problem like this before? Any ideas? Thanks a lot for any help.



Replies:

Posted By: i am an idiot
Date Posted: October 30, 2009 at 7:50 PM

Have you ever replaced the battery?





Posted By: hatchetman337
Date Posted: October 30, 2009 at 7:53 PM
Yes, the battery was replaced last fall/winter when it first started happening.




Posted By: robertsc
Date Posted: October 30, 2009 at 8:30 PM

I had one that stumped me and my customer for awhile .

When the customer left the vehicle he was hitting the power seat button down and it was sticking there.

After we found out that was what it was we removed the breaker for the power seats and never had a issue after.

Get your battery load tested to make sure its ok , I have seen more than once where a replacment battery was no good.

Also it needs to be a good draw to kill it in 4 hours.





Posted By: hatchetman337
Date Posted: October 30, 2009 at 8:34 PM
I doubt it's the battery, because I went all summer long without having a problem. Sometimes I would not drive it for days and it would start just fine.




Posted By: moonliter
Date Posted: October 31, 2009 at 10:17 AM

I had the same problem on 05 silverado. It turned out to be defective bypass module gm-sl2. Once it a while, it caused the bcm to stay on, when remote start had shut down. Obviously gm-sl2 had some designed flaws & since had discontinued. I replaced it with an INT-SL and problems had disappearred.

Find out what bypass module in your truck. Hope this info helps.





Posted By: hatchetman337
Date Posted: October 31, 2009 at 3:50 PM
We're going to give that a shot. Thanks for the suggestion. I just shot over there today and he swapped it out. Let's hope for the best.




Posted By: xtremej
Date Posted: November 02, 2009 at 11:45 AM

I see you are in new york. Batteries have a lower reserve when its colder. I recomend aslo having your alternator tested.

Are your drive times short where you go? Sometimes with a weak alternator and short drive times coupled with colder weather battery problems arrise.

You should have a make and model availabel of what kind of remote start is installed not matter how ordered.





Posted By: hatchetman337
Date Posted: November 02, 2009 at 3:23 PM

Not a lot of short drives for me.  Mostly I drive 1/2 hour to work.  Now that you mention it, though, the last time it happened it was only 5 minutes to my girlfriend's house.  It seems like a long shot, though, to be the alternator, since I made that trip to my girlfriend's plenty of times during the summer and no problem.  I realize that the colder weather is harder on a battery, but we've hardly seen "cold" weather for NY yet.  It's only been in the 30's at coldest at night and this happened during the daytime while it was 50 something. 

It's a Direkt Start I believe, not sure the model, but it's a 2-way remote start/alarm.  I've had them before from the same place and had no issues whatsoever, in fact, my mother and sister have different models from the same manufacture on their vehicles and haven't had a single problem.

It originally had an idatalink interface and just the other day we switched it to a DEI interface in the hopes that it would give us better luck.  It's only been a few days so far, but no problems yet (fingers crossed).





Posted By: hatchetman337
Date Posted: November 02, 2009 at 10:38 PM
*Update*

Well, today I drove my truck to my girlfriend's house, parked it, and took her car to work. Got back this evening and battery was stone dead. It even had trouble starting with jumper cables hooked up at first. I guess it wasn't the bypass unit....

Not sure WHAT to think now. The only thing we haven't swapped out on the system is the siren.




Posted By: i am an idiot
Date Posted: November 03, 2009 at 6:09 AM
Charge the battery fully and go to Autozone and have them perform a load test on the battery.  
If there is a starter kill relay on the system, where is the relay coil getting power from?  Or try disconnecting 85 or 86 of the relay to eliminate that possibility from the equation.




Posted By: jim hunter
Date Posted: November 03, 2009 at 8:58 AM
i would have your buddy temporarily disconnect the remote start,what type of dei bypass did he switch to? if its an express kit thru data i would have him disconnectthat and hook up old passlock bypass, quite possibly the bypass is keeping bcm awake which willkill battery quick,




Posted By: kgerry
Date Posted: November 03, 2009 at 10:35 AM
i would disconnect the starter and bypass and try this for a few days.... i had a customer with exactly the same issues on a 05 back in 06 that we installed a starter on... we disconnected everything and the problem was still there.... turned out one of his heated mirrors was staying on and draining the battery.... nothing to do with my install but 2 different dealers told him "it must be the starter".......

-------------
Kevin Gerry
Certified Electronics Technician
MECP First Class Installer

Owner/Installer
Classic Car Audio
since 1979




Posted By: hatchetman337
Date Posted: November 03, 2009 at 12:12 PM
What was it that was causing a mirrors to stay on? 




Posted By: kgerry
Date Posted: November 03, 2009 at 3:38 PM

no idea... something in the mirror i think.... but i had to disconnect the starter and bypass to "prove" to them that it wasnt the starter causing the problem....strange thing was this problem supposedly occured right after having the starter installed... at first i thought it might have been the bypass module, but the module i used didnt do heated mirrors or seats, just locks and passlock.....

whatever it was was something they covered under warranty.....



-------------
Kevin Gerry
Certified Electronics Technician
MECP First Class Installer

Owner/Installer
Classic Car Audio
since 1979




Posted By: yimke
Date Posted: November 04, 2009 at 7:40 PM
kgerry wrote:

i would disconnect the starter and bypass and try this for a few days.... i had a customer with exactly the same issues on a 05 back in 06 that we installed a starter on... we disconnected everything and the problem was still there.... turned out one of his heated mirrors was staying on and draining the battery.... nothing to do with my install but 2 different dealers told him "it must be the starter".......


That sounds like every dealership response I get. I HAS to be the REMOTE START!. I laugh then tell them "we'll see." I swear it is like AIDS to dealerships, all of them don't want to touch it.




Posted By: biglimpdog
Date Posted: December 15, 2009 at 5:12 PM
did you ever figure out the problem?




Posted By: bloke
Date Posted: December 16, 2009 at 10:49 AM

Yes, this is a curious problem.  Please post a follow-up.  Inquiring minds want to know.



-------------
2004 Colorado - Needs remote start.




Posted By: hatchetman337
Date Posted: December 16, 2009 at 11:40 AM

Thanks for checking in.  Here's basically what's happened since my last post:

- Tried an experiment by not using the remote start for a while.  It went well for a week or so then, BLAMMO, dead battery again.  It happened about 2 days in a row.

- I did some investigating because I was getting desparate.  I have a hi4 kit installed on my truck (just a relay that keeps the low beams on when the highs come on) and it wasn't working properly as of late.  I found that one of the connections had become a little corroded, so I replaced it and it worked fine.  Went a few days without problems, then went dead again....

- For some reason, my fog lamp switch sticks a little.  Though I've gotten very good at pushing it in so that it doesn't stick, I was thinking that for some odd reason maybe it was drawing on the battery sometimes, so I replaced it.  It hasn't gone dead since then, but it seems less likely to be the cause compared to...

- I put a load tester on my battery and checked it out.  It would sit at 12V, but when I applied a load, it would immediately drop to 10V and then slowly keep dropping.  I compared this to a known good battery, which only dropped to 11V and stayed there.  I also kept the load tester hooked up and used the remote starter.  When the starter engaged, the voltage dropped to 8V or less!!  I contacted the place I got my battery from and had it replaced under warranty.  It hasn't gone dead since (it's been about 2 weeks) and I've been using the starter right along.

Now here's the weird thing.  As I mentioned earlier in the post, I replaced the battery after this had already happened a couple times, so either my old battery was bad AND the new one was bad, or maybe there WAS actually some kind of problem with the remote starter and it's been fixed, but the battery was bad also.  I don't know and probably never will.  In fact, I'm not 100% sure that it is truly fixed since it's only been a couple weeks.  We'll see.

Another weird thing I noticed was that, when I put the replacement new battery in a couple weeks ago and began driving it, the voltage was not as high as it should have been.  It was only about 13V, but then I parked it for about 10 minutes and drove it again and it was then over 14V and slowly dropped down to 13V.  I got home, put it on a slow charger for several hours, and haven't noticed that problem again since (and believe me, I've been looking).  Not sure what to think about that.  I was worried my alternator had s*&t the bed, but it hasn't happened again.





Posted By: biglimpdog
Date Posted: December 16, 2009 at 1:31 PM

wow, sounds like my journey!





Posted By: hatchetman337
Date Posted: December 18, 2009 at 9:52 AM
.............. Talk about a jinx!! It went dead again yesterday!!posted_image   

I think I may change the alternator. Not sure if that's it, but my dad said he had a problem before with an alternator draining the battery when it stopped in a certain spot, which would explain why it only happens every so often. ARGH!posted_image




Posted By: hatchetman337
Date Posted: December 19, 2009 at 12:03 AM
Put a new alternator on it tonight. Let's see how it works..... Hope for the best.posted_image




Posted By: biglimpdog
Date Posted: December 21, 2009 at 10:53 AM
I noticed something about my remote start yesterday. If you remote start it, the radio will stay on until thedoor is opened again. This could be killing your battery




Posted By: joch1314
Date Posted: December 21, 2009 at 12:46 PM

If i'm not mistaking, the radio has a preset time that it stays on.  Of course it will shut off when a door is opened, but if a door is not opened, (you remote start it and decide to kill the remote start and never enter  the vehicle) it shuts off after about ten or fifteen minutes.  Others can verify that...



-------------
...half of the truth can be worse than a lie. <----Roger Russell said that..




Posted By: hatchetman337
Date Posted: January 21, 2010 at 11:55 AM

Well, it wasn't the alternator.  It's happened twice since then, about 2 weeks or so apart.  I did notice that for some reason my interior door light on the pass. side stays on sometimes until you open and close any door again.  I pulled the bulb just in case.

Well, I've decided on selling my truck, so I'm having the remote starter pulled in a couple days.  If I have the problem with my next vehicle when the starter is installed, we'll know what it was for sure. 

Thanks for all the help and suggestions.





Posted By: jeremytravis
Date Posted: January 22, 2010 at 12:37 AM
Well let me just start off by saying that GM trucks are notorious for battery issues. Well if anyone els has this problem what you can do is check for (Parasitic Current Draw) by disconnecting your negative battery cable set your DMM to milliamperes then attach the red probe to the negative battery cable & the black probe to the negative battery post, let the current draw settle for about 30sec-1min if the standby current measures over 30 milliamperes remove the fuse or fuses from the suspected component and see if the measurement changes, if you observe a significant change you should be able to pinpoint your problem.

-------------
**ADVANCED MECP CERTIFIED




Posted By: hatchetman337
Date Posted: January 22, 2010 at 7:23 AM
It would be great if it were that simple, but this is so intermittent that who knows if I would EVER catch it in the act unless I had an A meter installed where I could always see it in the driver's seat.




Posted By: hatchetman337
Date Posted: August 06, 2010 at 1:22 PM

Obviously this has been a while, but let me update here.  I removed the remote starter from my truck, but also found a bulb in the door that would sometimes stay on, so I pulled the bulb.  I wasn't quite sure which it might've been, but I sold the truck to a friend's daughter and she hasn't had a single problem....

Until this week.  Apparently last week she had a remote starter installed on it and now it's going dead every few days AGAIN.

I guess it was the starter afterall.  Apparently my/her truck just isn't meant to have one.





Posted By: howie ll
Date Posted: August 07, 2010 at 4:20 AM
Glad it's sorted but had you done the standard test as posted by jeremytravis you might have found the problem far sooner.

-------------
Amateurs assume, don't test and have problems; pros test first. I am not a free install service.
Read the installation manual, do a search here or online for your vehicle wiring before posting.




Posted By: hatchetman337
Date Posted: August 07, 2010 at 7:13 AM
I don't think that would've been easy to do being that it did it so randomly. I could sometimes leave it sitting for several days with no problem, but then I would driver it around on lunch at work, and 4 hours later when it was time to go home, it would be stone dead.





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