HI, I am trying to help a friend out with her 1999 Mustang problems.....this is what she wrote...

For several years, I've been trying to find the source of a parasitic electrical drain, to no avail.

The Ford garage replaced the alternator, but that didn't fix it.
The local garage replaced some wiring, but couldn't fix it.
The second Ford garage (last week) tested it and only found 20 milliamps, which is acceptable according to Ford, and shouldn't cause the battery to be drained.

Someone said a bad ground wire could be the cause, so I cleaned all the terminals, all the wires and all the connections.

I drove her for hours on Saturday, with no problems. Started her up yesterday, with no problems.
And yet, this morning, the battery is again dead.



ANy idea what else could be draining the battery? She would like to sell the car, but she will not sell until she has this problem figured out. Thanks for any help.

 

Is the battery dead for sure, or will the car just not turn over? Battery been replaced? Does it have an alarm?

 

Sounds to me like your battery needs to be replaced. Replace it with an optima battery and be over it.

 

+1 on a new battery. Eight year old car that probably hasn't had its battery changed.

 

after that many charging cycles from dead drained means your gonna need a new battery, but youll likely want to find the SOURCE of the problem before subjecting a new battery to the SOURCE of the problem. the dead battery is just a symptom. of what its hard to say. have the battery itself tested to see if the problem is internal, if it is, get a new one and close the book.

 

It seems to me if she has been working on this problem for years, the battery would have been the first place to check, but it sounds like she has a short some where, which is my worst nightmare

you may never find it, my friend has a sn95 black GT and he has to unplug the bat. every night when he parks bc he has never been able to find the short