Relays killing battery with car off???

[19redbird90]

This is a new one for me. My wife took our daughter to school the other morning, came home for an hour, went to start the truck again and it was dead. No chimes, no radio...nothing. I came home that night, tested the battery charge and it was as dead as it gets. Time for a new battery anyway, so I started there. Had good power and fired it up. When I turned it off, I heard a clicking from the power distribution box. It's a rhythmic double-click...double-click...double-click. This keeps happeing while key is out of the ignition. I started pulling relays. As it turns out, when I pull EITHER the ARC relay OR the PCM relay, the click is still there, but goes to a single-click rhythm. The click finally stops altogether if I pull both at once. I can assume this is pulling on my battery with the car off causing it to die. Oddly enough, I don't even think this truck has an ARC system since there is no cutoff switch by the jack. I find this strange because I would think the Eddie Bauer would have that option, but whatever. Whew...any help would be GREATLY appreciated as I have my wife disconnecting the negative cable everyday when she goes to work to keep her from being stranded with a dead battery.

 

[YBCold]

it can happen. it happened on my first gen. so i had to disconnect one battery terminal and read the drain on it and pluck fuses untill the drain dropped to acceptable standards. i thinki like .5 amps or less is good. or you can use a testlight the same way but its not as accurate.

any thing can cause the relay to stick close, could be shorted wiring or its old and it just stuck anyway.

check these links for some good infos

http://www.aa1car.com/library/battery_runs_down.htm

http://www.aa1car.com/library/tselec.htm

http://www.aa1car.com/library/charging_checks.htm

 

[19redbird90]

Thanks. I did do some voltage checks after installing the new battery. With the car off and all accessories off it seemed to be dropping about .01 every 10 seconds.

 

[19redbird90]

By the way, I've had the truck forever and it has 199,000 miles on it. My second line of defense was to replace the two relays. Still no change. Living in the north, I wonder about corrosion on wiring, bad grounds and whatnot (for what it's worth, we've had dense fog 24/7 for about a week - I know moist air can sometimes affect electrical). I'm pretty good with mechanical but not so great in diagnosing eletrical issues. A few questions:
1. Were all Eddie Bauer editions equipped with ARC? Again, I see no switch where there is supposed to be one. (I hope not since I've had the truck off the ground countless times for brakes, suspension work, etc.)
2. If there is no ARC system, why would that relay slot be filled?
3. Is this an issue that could be caused by a bad PCM? I’m afraid to know what a replacement would cost…

 

[YBCold]

pcms dont cost much and they almost never fail. if they do its coz you had epic fail by connecting battery backwards or something. i have no idea about eddie bauers having arc. ,my money is on the wiring. it could be corroded. moisture seems to kill. it could be that they decided to use the relay slot for whatever. do you have a fuse to the ARC system? not sure.

 

[19redbird90]

Ok...I don't know how to say this, but I'm an idiot. I go back outside and hook up the battery. I open the power distribution box and look back at the chart in my manual. I realized I have been looking at the maxi fuse side of the power distribution box chart, NOT the relay side. I turned the page and there are the relay identifiers. The relays I THOUGHT were PCM and ARC were actually the rear wiper up and rear wiper down. I bought the truck with 32,000 miles and the rear wiper has never worked, so I forget it's even there. Somehow, someone decided to turn the rear wiper switch to "on". I turned it to "off" and...you guessed it...the clicks stopped. Did I happen to mention that troubleshooting electrical is not my strongest suit?

Thanks for the input.

 

[YBCold]

yes $hit happens. ohwell. hope that fixed it. keep monitoring anyway just incase.

 

[moostache]

Been having the exact same issue on my 2000 Explorer - I naively thought that I had narrowed it down to the clicking relay...

Of course the problem was actually the rear wiper switch being engaged without my knowledge, probably by a passenger on a recent road trip.

THANKS to 19redbird90 and this forum for the solution and saving me the cost of a pair of new relays.

 

[DavidU]

Thanks Rear Wiper Causes Relay Click and Dead Battery

Thanks..this is a great site..
I noticed clicking under hood but ignored it and went to beach for a couple days.

Returned to dead battery..once on charge clicking started..isolated to relays #9 & #10.

Came to this site via google ... 2nd thread dropped me here...sure enough the rear wiper switch was in on position. Turned it off ---clicking stopped..
Thanks again

 

[bobflood]

1. Were all Eddie Bauer editions equipped with ARC? Again, I see no switch where there is supposed to be one. (I hope not since I've had the truck off the ground countless times for brakes, suspension work, etc.)
…

No, all EBs did NOT have air ride. I have a 97 2WD EB with no ARC. I believe all Limiteds did have ARC, but not positive.