2017 Suburban battery drain

[Bob Machinski]

My 2017 Suburban Prenier is on it’s third battery in just over a year. Has been towed to the dealer twice because of dead battery after sitting for only two or three days. Dealer can’t find any thing wrong. This morning tried to go to church, battery dead (2.4 volts) after car had not been run for only two days. Totally unreliable. Help!

[Snowcamo]

Pull the alternator and have it tested at an auto parts store. Could Just be the diodes gone bad. If the they are the alternator still still charge will running but drain the battery in a flash after the engine has been shut off.

 

They cannot test the diodes while its in the suv it has to be on the machine inside.

Edited^^^

Edited March 24, 2019 by Snowcamo
Last sentence

[mn camper guy]

Just had a relative with similar issue. After many new batteries and a couple yrs, they finally figured out it was the OnStar not turning off.

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[Doug_Scott]

I would imagine if there is a diode out, and it was in fact causing the drain, it would show up right away when you pull the negative cable and check the current flow.  I also have never heard of this happening in 40 some odd years of this mechanicing professionally. 

 

Get yourself an induction ammeter and with the hood left open, check the draw when you first shut it off a with the keys in your pocket, check the draw.  Wait 15 minutes and don't touch the truck in those 15 minutes, check the draw again. It should be negligible (somewhere in the milliamps range}.  Maybe leave it with the hood open overnight and check the draw again eight hours later.  Be aware of how you are checking.  You have to avoid doing anything that turns on a light bulb.  Once you turn a bulb on it will reset the timer on the system that does the retained power timer. 

 

What I have seen in three trucks(2010 and 2012) is if you let the truck sit for 3 or 4 days of below 0 F temps and try to start it with the remote start is that it will not crank fast enough to start, and if you go out to start it, it still will not crank, or will just crank over one cylinder at a time.  In my case, I can bring out my battery tender(the 1.5 amp model off my bike) , connect it up, leave the hood up, walk around open the door, reach in and try to start it, it will crank like a real cold does and will start.  There is no way a battery tender can produce anywhere near enough amperage to start my FZ1 if it's battery is dead, let alone my truck. My buddy and his son both have 2012 Sierras that behave the same way, except I think they don't fire it up and drive it like I do.  I live alone, so if I have to go out for an appointment, I can't just take the bike instead in the winter. I know I could prevent it by using the battery tender all the time, but in the winter this is about the only excitement I get. 

[Gmman]

I had a similar thing happen with my truck. Took it to the dealer and the found that the relay for the heated mirrors had shorted and melted the side of the relay.  Maybe check that.

[Jsdirt]

Could be any one of a million things on these trucks. One of the downfalls of having half a billion wires and 20 computers just to get from point A to point B ...

 

Had that problem intermittently with my '07 Silverado. Randomly it would just kill the battery overnight. Never did find the cause - hasn't happened again in 8 years. When it was at the dealer, they somehow cranked up the duty cycle of the alternator, & increased the threshold for when it stops charging. That lightened the load on the battery a bit.

 

My guess is there's a defective module that isn't going to sleep when it should, or, is being kept awake by a bad input. Could be anything from the BCM to the ignition switch, and everything in between, including what people have already mentioned above.

 

Your best bet is to find a COMPETENT dealer (IF under WARRANTY) - good luck with that. If it's out of warranty, your chances of a successful repair go WAY up. Find a shop or mobile tech that specializes in drivability concerns, and they should be able to have this fixed in a day, provided it doesn't need any parts. 

[Doug_Scott]

Are they not paying straight time for wiring issues anymore? I remember a couple of wiring issue jobs that saved my ass one February that not one flat rate mechanic made the full hours due to crappy economy.  This was in 78 I think. I was doing a PDI on a 78 Imperial.  This was my first PDI since to keep mechanics they were doing PDIs on in stock new cars prior to sale. This Imperial was the most bizarre acting car I ever saw.  Anyone who has read my posts in regards to electrical issues will notice I push verifying grounds.  This car was what started all that.  Nothing worked in this car as you would expect.  Stuff like opening the door with engine running would cycle the wipers once. There were so many things not working correctly that it was impossible to get one to work without that fix appearing to break something else.  After 7 hours the service manager saw that I was getting frustrated and he asked me why was I getting upset, wiring issues are straight time under warranty. Keep in mind this was 1977, no factory support, service manuals would show up in the spring, and any special tools wouldn't show up until you made one up from prior years tools.  After 16 hours I finally gave up and ordered the main dash harness.  Wasn't until I had most of the dash out of the car that I saw this huge bundle of wires connected to 5 eye connectors that were all supposed to attach to the 5/16 threaded stud with a real 5/16 NF nut and 2 of those thin sharp edged lock washers.  I knew about the nut and washers because it all came with that 40 pound wiring harness. Found out why they weren't bolted down though, some genius ran the harness down the wrong side of a brace and it made ground wires too short to reach.  I always wondered how many Imperials did that guy work on. 

Everytime I saw that car come in that year I got a chill down my back.  The other wiring job that month were the first 2 Sapporos we had sold.  Both cars were sold to the same family, and both were ordered in with radio, so the guy that used to do the radio work did the two cars, and they both came back because dash lights kept blowing fuses.  I got the job, lucky me, and remember what I wrote about not getting manuals till late in model year, that meant no wiring diagram.  It took me a long time to figure out that Mitsubishi did not wire things like the big three here, back then dash light brightness was controlled by hooking the ground wire to a rheostat.  Mitsubishi on trolled brightness by controlling the power side.  Everytime they would turn the brightness for dash lights, it would immediately blow the fuse, would have been a breeze to fix if we had known that.  Second car was easy to fix though. 

[Jsdirt]

GM screws it's techs worse than its customers. They expect their techs to work for free, hence the state of affairs we have today - constant comebacks, firing of the parts cannon on your dime, and in the end, never fixing the problem - then, warranty ends, and they don't give 2 shits. The diagnostic pay is atrocious, and keeps getting cut back as the years go on ...

[Oodles]

To Bob Machinski:  Did you ever find out what the problem was?  (Have exact same vehicle, exact same problem & only 1024 miles on it...know post is a little old, but hope you find this...)

[Oodles]

Finally sent our 2017 Chevy Suburban Premier into dealer yesterday---they put in new battery.  Told them that wasn't it...they said affirmatively it was a dead cell & that it will work.  Said we needed to drive it more.  Took home.  Dead battery next morning.  Today they are going to pick it up with their Roadside Assistance Program from our driveway as still under warranty.  Will see what dealer comes up with.  We believe it could be this problem identified below: 

See Technical Service Bulletin No. 17-NA-214 dtd February 2018

Also, see Youtube video (excellent) entitled "2015 Chevrolet 2500 GPS antenna/ MYLINK Fix/ radio screen stayed illuminated"---there are several other good videos just like this that should be watched...everyone experiences slightly different problems but dead battery is one of those possible problems, but we're betting that this could be it, so we will find out after the dealer looks at it (again)...Chevy will put the exact same style of fin back on as Youtube videos present, back hole on GM part is an invitation for water/corrosion on wires & radar circuit board---everyone's cars sit outside during travel trips---we're all in trouble.  Hole needs to be put on front at slope, not on top of slope.  Our car was kept in the garage all the time---rarely driven---wasn't until we left it outside in driveway for just a few weeks that this dead battery problem started happening, & we have had humidity, dew &  rain off & on the past few weeks.

 

[Adam Chorak]

Did you ever find what was going on with your suburban?  Now having the same problem.  Battery is draining at night.  Have to use a charger to jump it and then it runs fine