How to easily find a current leak in a car, its cause and fix it
Many people are familiar with the situation when you try to start the car in the morning, but the starter shows no signs of life. The battery is discharged, and it is not clear what dropped him off in the parking lot. A simple and affordable way to find a current leak in a car is offered in this article. Begin.
How to check, find the cause and fix it
To determine the circuit through which the leak occurs, a multimeter. For safety, it is the negative wire that should be disconnected.
If you remove the positive one, then if you are not careful, it may short circuit to the car body. This can lead to failure of the components of the car's electrical circuit, and in the worst case, even to a fire. Before connecting multimeter You should set the DC current measurement limit on it to 10 Amps. The device readings indicate that the current consumption of the car at rest is 0.68 Amperes.
True, after some time the current value will drop slightly. This is due to the fact that the electrolytic capacitors in the Electronic Control Unit are charged when turned on. After a few minutes, the device shows 0.34 A. This is still a lot.Current leakage in the car should not exceed 0.02 - 0.05 Ampere. That is 10 times less. There is a problem. How to find her?
Let's turn our attention to the fuse box. They protect various electrical circuits of the car.
And if you turn them off one by one, then according to indications multimeter it is easy to track when the current consumption drops to rated values. The first, second fuse... When the sixth fuse was turned off, the current value dropped to 0.03 A. A leak was found.
Reference information from books or the Internet will help you find consumers who are connected to this circuit. And for the VAZ-2107, which is tested in this video, this turns out to be a cigarette lighter and a portable lamp socket. Strange, it would seem that there should be no hidden consumers here. It should be sorted out.
Finding the fault was greatly simplified after locating the circuit consuming a large current. In the end, the problem turned out to be a non-extinguishing trunk lamp, which was also connected in parallel to the cigarette lighter. The limit switch is most likely to blame.
The cause has been found and will be eliminated.
