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2003 explorer dead battery issues

dc1962

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January 18, 2016
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Year, Model & Trim Level
2003 explorer
I have a 2003 explorer that i have replaced the battery 3 times since december 2015. Each time the car starts fine for about a week or so, then seems like on cold mornings below freezing the battery is dead. When tested the report says a bad cell, voltage was drained down to around 7 volts. Alternator tests fine with 14 volt output. When i take it to the shop, they cant find any voltage drain. and put in a new battery and it works fine for about two weeks. The only other issue I can see is the ABS warning light on the dash lights up occasoinally and then goes out after car is turned off. Any help would be appreciated.
 



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Some alternators act up only after warming up. Perhaps having driven for ten minutes.

Your dome lights don't stay on after closing the drivers door?
Drivers door window controls are all okay?
 






No Dome light does not stay on, and windows seem to work okay, thanks for the quick response. I ran my car all day on Sunday running errands, and on Monday morning the battery was dead.
 






You have a short somewhere then. There's a thread here in the forum on how to pull each fuse until you find the bad circuit. Use the search bar above to find it.
 






I have a 2003 explorer that i have replaced the battery 3 times since december 2015. Each time the car starts fine for about a week or so, then seems like on cold mornings below freezing the battery is dead. When tested the report says a bad cell, voltage was drained down to around 7 volts. Alternator tests fine with 14 volt output. When i take it to the shop, they cant find any voltage drain. and put in a new battery and it works fine for about two weeks. The only other issue I can see is the ABS warning light on the dash lights up occasoinally and then goes out after car is turned off. Any help would be appreciated.

Some other questions to hopefully find this problem.
1) Does it seem hard to start after leaving it sit for a while, as compared to shutting it down and starting shortly after that?
2) Did they test your alternator at different RPMs to get the 14 volts?

I ask both of those questions, I had a car that seemed to "eat" batteries. After going through 4 of em, I had the alternator tested under different loads and found that when pushing the RPMs up into the 4000-5000 range, my alt was providing too much power (IIRC 15.5+ volts), burning out the cells and causing the battery to stop charging.
It did not matter that I would shut it down and restart quickly or let it sit for a while, it would start properly, until it would just refuse to start.
 






I ding think they did. I will suggest that and let you know what the outcome is. Great suggestion.
 






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