I got a power leak that's draining my battery in a day or two. The multimeter shows the drain at fuse 14-Battery Saver Relay/Interior Lamp Relay. The Lamp relay was cool, the Saver relay was very warm, almost hot. I put in a new relay and after 10-20 minutes it was hot also. I'm not sure where to go from here to find the drain. I think the GEM module has something to do with the Battery Saver. The GEM is hard to find and not cheap. Before I go nuts replacing perfectly fine parts does anyone have any suggestions?

Is the Battery Saver required for the truck to run properly? Can I just pull the Battery Saver relay and run it without it? It's just an old work truck.

 

Unless you waited 30-45 minutes after the last change in the circuit or system, you measured the short-term draw. You have to wait until the battery saver circuitry (controlled in the GEM in a 98), times out before you can get a valid quiescent current draw. Failure to wait will result in an inaccurate diagnosis and replacing perfectly good parts which don't fix anything.

That may be expected, since the relay remains on for the above time interval, especially if you had a door open, or the underhood or glovebox light was on at the time. It was just doing its job it was supposed to.

 

Yeah....I know all about replacing perfectly good parts. You should read my last thread on the same vehicle.....what a cluster. I changed a half dozen sensors, coil pack, plugs, plug wires, timing chain, etc. It took months to figure out the woodruff key slot on the harmonic balancer was worn about half the width of a key. Threw the timing off. Anyways..

Thanks for the heads up. You were right. I left the window down, reached in and checked it after an hour, it was cool. I also rechecked the drain from the battery without breaking the circuit. I was reading .01, acceptable. I broke the circuit and checked it again, .15 drain, just the battery saver doing it's job. Must be a bad battery. It's only a couple years old but it can happen.