1993 Corvette wont hold a charge

01silverado2500 · May 11, 2005

Ok I know this is a truck site but I get really helpful replies here and I hope GM TECH can steer me in the right direction here......

I have a 1993 Corvette and I just brought it home from winter storage a few weeks ago and im having a problem with the car keeping a charge when it is sitting.

I have a trickle charger but I have not used it this season because i did not have access to an outlet in the garage. The last few times I went to take the car out it cranked very slowly. The last time I started it, it was very slow to crank and when it sis start the digital volt reading was 14.9. I installed my trickle charger that day to the car and it was on charging for awhile, then it went to trouble.

So I took the battery out and gave it a full charge on the workbench. After the charge was complete, I installed my trickle charger on the battery, that was still out of the car, and it was saying charged. I then reinstalled the battery into the car, and then reconnected the trickle charger. The reading was charging, then after a few minutes it went to trouble. I then tried another trickle charger, which I use on my trailer battery, and it also did the same thing.

I am worried that there may be something drawing power for some reason when the car is off or there may be a short somewhere. The battery was replaced last season with an Optima Red Top.

Any help from anyone is greatly appreciated. I think I am going to get the battery load tested just to make sure it is good.

Thanks

GM-Tech · May 12, 2005

Sounds like a battery problem to me. Get it tested and if it tests out okay, then you need to do a draw test to see how is being drawn from the battery when everything is supposedly off. I doubt you'll have to get to this point.

dogdays · May 12, 2005

If you let the battery sit uncharged all winter the battery is sulphated to the point that you need another. A battery loses a certain percentage of its charge per day and sooner or later it will become discharged and start becoming less and less able to store power. The usual fix for this is to replace the battery.

You could use a trickle charger or battery minder or else use one of the solar chargers that plug into the lighter to protect your new battery. If the solar cells don't get sun where the car is stored you may have to put the charger where it can get sun and splice in a longer piece of wire. Or remove the battery and put it where you can plug in a bettery minder.

R.

SS Crew · May 13, 2005

So got a new battery and just got to jive it a try.

01silverado2500 · May 12, 2005

UPDATE..... Had the battery load tested and it failed. So got a new battery and just got to jive it a try.

Thanks GM TECH for your time......You are a huge part of what makes gm-trucks.com such a great forum site. Keep up the hard work we all appreciate it.