I bought a 20o0 Mazda Millenia less than half yr ago. (63k) It has a few odd quirks, and I know the guy who sold it lied about afew things.

It had a BOSE radio and CD system, and when I got it home the CD player would not work. The guy said he 'never tried it." Right.

Anyway, he DID mention he had put a new batt. in within the last yr. Good.


Now and then , if I went over a bump of any kind , my radio would go off. Finally, it stopped working altogether. Oh well.

The gas gauge is odd. Say it is 1/4 full. If I go get a fillup, it stays at 1/4 for a few mins and then slowly goes up to half... and after app 5 mins driving , goes to full. I dont really care , but it is odd as I asked the guy who sold it to me and he said "it never happened ' to him. HUH?

Anyway, 3-4 weeks ago, my car wouldnt start at all. My neighbor jumped me and then noticed I had a loose cable connection. I got a new cable from Auto Zone, and the guy there put it on for me.

Last week , I went aWAY FOR 5 DAYS. (sorry caps) When I got home, the car was DEAD. My husband jumped it, and then it seemed fine . (phew) Today, I went to strat my car and nada ! We removed the battery, took it to autozone and it tested as good. The guy told us how to test the alternator and that seemed fine too. It would seem that maybe something is draining my battery.
But what ?

NO , I leave nothing at all on in the car.

Any ideas at all? I don't trust it anymore.
THX!

 

is the radio a single cd, or 6 cd(millenium edition)? we have 2 99's, and i upgraded to the indash 6 cd unit. got them on ebay, and both had bad cd changers. i was able to fix them, but the radio portion always worked.
you should take the car someplace and get a load test. if all tests good, then you gotta(or your husband, poor soul) do it the hard way. first, you get a multi meter, pref one that can measure amps. volts will work, but amps might be easier to see. you attach it to the battery, eng off, then start pulling fuses. you are looking for a large spike in amps/volts. when you pull the fuse that is on the circuit drawing current, the amps will go down, the volts up. now you know what circuit is the draw. then, you start disconnecting all the things on that circuit till you get the same result. a good place to start is the factory alarm system, i am told the little part that lites up when you lock the car draws a lot of current.
i think both our cars have slow fuel gauges.

if there are any non factory items, like alarm system, radio, amp, etc, that would be my first suspect for drawing current. lots of times whomever installs these things have thier head up their butt. the cutting off of the radio has got to be a loose connection.

 

YOU SAID :" good place to start is the factory alarm system, i am told the little part that lites up when you lock the car draws a lot of current."


I have been saying this all along !(and I know nothing about cars ! ) The things is, as I continuously look for lights, electrical,, etc ...I just keep seeing that darn red security light flashing and mocking me , but my husband says : "Well, it's supposed to flash." (which is true. But..... what can I do ? If I lock the dorr, it's pretty much automatic. It flashes- period! I can't leave my doors unlocked.

And yes, I agree ., that radio MUST be a loose connection. EVery speed bump used to turn if it on and off. Finally it just went dead.

BUT........I am NOT going to 'pay a lot for this muffler' ... I'll go without the darn radio first, but what can I do about the alarm light ?

My husband was pretty handy , but he is not in the best shape for troubleshooting right now as he has cancer . Even that battery was very heavy for him .

I appreciate all your advice !

Thank you.

 

i am only guessing. i generally do not post unless i have actual experience with the answer. recently, i had to get a new battery. checking my records, i bought a new sears battery in 2006, with a 36 mo replacement guarantee. since i still had a few months left, i got it replaced under warranty. this car we bought used, so no other battery history. however, i pulled the records on our other car, bought new, and the battery was replaced in 2004, again in 2006, under warranty, and again in 2008. so, perhaps there is something that is drawing current. having worked with auto parts for a very long time, i know that someone selling a car will buy the cheapest battery they can find, even ones that are not for the car. also, if you take the car there, most places will install the battery, no charge. also, they can do a load test, also no charge. i did these all the time. and again, you should check and see if any aftermarket accessories were installed, and then maybe removed. since the radio cuts out, it is possible an aftermarket radio was installed, and then the factory one put back in prior to sale. if so, perhaps the installer was a bit lazy, and left something that has a draw.

 

Assuming a 70 amp. hour battery, and it went flat in 5 days, this says the thief current is 70 amp. hours/ 5 x 24 hrs. = just over 1/2 amp.
So unship the battery -ve terminal and insert an ammeter on the 1 amp. range with the black lead on the battery and the red on the battery cable connector and see what you get.
If you don't get a reading of around 500 milliamps (1/2 amp.), that means the sneak current is internal to the battery itself, and your battery is the culprit. (Garages don't usually test for self discharge, but it should be considered when a battery is more than 3 years old, or whose history is unknown to you).

If the ammeter reads more than about 20 to 50 milliamps, you have to consider the external circuits as the cause.
Maybe it would be best to start with the assumption that the bad radio and bad CD are related to the battery drain problem. To test this, locate the fuse panel near the driver's door, look under the cover and you'll see a list of fuse ratings and functions; there is a separate one for the radio. So just yank it out, then see if your battery drain problem persists.
I'm skeptical about the alarm system. Provided it is the standard Mazda kit, and not an aftermarket add-on, these things draw very little current, and even when the lamp flashes (this being the main current draw), it's only about 50 milliamps for half a second every 3 seconds. This means that a 70 amp. hour battery would run for 1.3 years before the alarm system would flatten it. Since a battery self-discharges at a higher rate than that, the net impact of the alarm system is too small to worry about.
Still, if you can trace where it's connected to the fuse panel, yank that fuse and see if the problem disappears.
Beyond that, you have to put an ammeter in the battery line and locate the source of the phantom drain by laboriously pulling and plugging the fuses. Then do the same with the relays, because a sticking contact can cause this too. A final culprit is corrosion of the exposed lamp bulb sockets (sidelights, brake lights etc. etc.)