Trailer light drains battery waaay too quick

Asked by cilcil May 26, 2013 at 11:52 PM about the 2004 Scion xA 4 Dr STD Hatchback

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

I got a new trailer, light-weight. Same as posted on scionlife.
Hooking up the trailer "tail light" circuit, through a 3 wire to 2 wire "converter" drains the
battery to near dead in about 5 minutes. But, there is no short in the trailer. I know this
because I hooked up the same circuit to a 12V powersupply & measured the current,
and its fine at 3.6A. A short would be a lot more.
If the additional 3.6A was exceeding the fuse rating of that circuit (10A I think) then the
fuse would blow, but it wouldnt kill the battery so quick.
A dead battery could be the culprit, but it shows 12.6V open circuit voltage, which acc.
to the manual, is fully charged. And I can run the head lights/radio for a long time, but
hook up the trailer, and bam, radio dies, battery light comes on, battery gets killed.
Anyone have any ideas?

1 Answer

migration_judge_roy answered 10 years ago

batteries degrade 10% per year...in other words the ability for the battery to accept a charge degrades 10% per year..a 2004 is a grandpa...you are asking grandpa to do a lot of heavy lifting~

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