Quote:
Originally Posted by zcostilla
My son has a ‘97 4Runner Limited and just had the starter replaced last week. Battery was replaced a year ago. Now he has developed a new voltage drain and needs to jump it every morning to get it started. Autozone tested the battery twice, and alternator and they test good. He is in Brooklyn, NY for an internship for the summer and I’m not able to help him work on it. I did tell him to take it back to the mechanic that did the starter, but I don't know how reputable they are.
If anyone has any ideas I can pass along to him, it would be greatly appreciated.
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I just ran a parasitic draw test to find out if I was having similar issues. Learned a lot from it. You could try it to make sure it's in fact the starter. Get yourself a multimeter and turn it to DC Amp, either the 10 or 20 amp setting. Take the negative battery cable off the battery terminal. Take one of your multimeter probes and connect it to your negative battery cable, take your other probe and put it on the negative battery terminal. Now wait a few minutes while they are connected and if your reading is more than 50mA(.05 amps) then you have a parasitic draw.
If you suspect the starter, pull the starter fuse and see if your reading drops on the multimeter. If it does drop then you know it's the starter. If it doesn't drop then something else is causing the issue then you can start pulling fuses and watching which fuse will drop the draw then you know it's on that circuit. Make sure when you run this test to make sure all doors are closed or you'll get a false reading. If you reading 0 then you are getting an incorrect reading and could be a blown fuse in the multimeter. This test wont work. Please read below a few comments for a better explanation by another member You need to make sure that you leave the probes on for a few minutes before you get a correct reading. Some cars can take 45 minutes before everything goes back to sleep after you have connected the probes. Make sure you have a fully charged battery when you run the test.
As an example, my 97 SR5 would read 60-70mA when I connected the probes, but then drop to a steady 20mA a couple minutes later. The limited edition may have more features and draw a tiny bit more power than the SR5. From my research, 20-40mA seems to be the norm for these 4runners.