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Battery Keeps Dying-Ideas?

S

sim

Well-known member
I've got this battery that I bought new from Sears about a month and a half ago. It's a good, Deep Cycle marine battery and a couple of times after not using the boat for a week I come out and find it dead as a doornail. I'll either jump it or charge it and it's fine unless I leave it sitting for a week. It's been dead twice Took it back to Sears the first time which tested it and said the battery is fine.
I'm confused. New short or something in the system?
What I'm doing for now is just disconnecting the positive terminal when I put it away although that's a pain because then I can't trim it up and down to move it or support bracket without climbing in and hooking it up.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
 
Good suggestion and I would think the same thing except for the fact that the radio has been disconnected and sitting in my garage all summer.
Keep thinkin'.


I just looked at Jekyll & Hyde's post from June. I'm gonna do what Jimway suggested.
 
How is your charging system? are you geting at least 14 v to the battery when you are running?
One test we used to do, was to take a test light hold it to the negitive side of the battery and the other end to a ground. If it lit up we know we had a short somewhere, then we would start serching. good luck Hope you find it some times electrical issues are a major PIA.
 
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deep cycle batteries are not designed for cranking, so battery life will be an issue. deep cycles are designed for running trolling motors, stereos, lights - low draw items.

cranking batteries are used for cranking only - using them for the above items will kill them faster.

not sure if you are running a dual system or not. but i would take a multimeter and check for draws while systematically removing electrical items.

a likely suspect is an auto bilge pump that kicks on to sense for water every few minutes (i think they are made by rule) - since the stereo issue has been addressed. as already mentioned, make sure your battery is actually getting a charge.
 
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A battery disconnect switch will work as a band-aid, but I'm sure you are going to want to find out what is drawing down your batter too. Do you see an arc when you disconnect the battery cable?
 
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What year is your motor? Is it injected? You may have to disconnect your wires one at a time until you don't see the arc anymore. I have service manuals for some of the newer Merc motors. I could look at your wiring diagram and give you some things to look at if I know what you have.
 
It's a 97 merc 225 efi but I have a feeling that something probably is loose on the back of the dashboard as the whole floor was redone this winter and everything taken apart. This upcoming weekend I'll start testing. Till then I'm just leaving the battery cable disconnected. Thank you so much for all your help!
I'll report back this weekend.
 
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