So I recently bought a 99 cherokee sport, needs new steering parts which is fine but the other problem is something with my power. I've scrolled through a ton of forums and I've done a ton of different tests, but I just can't figure it out. Today I jumped it, charged it for 45 mins and turned it off, came back an hour later and opened the door, lights turned on and everything. I put the key in and it made its usual beep but as soon as I turned the key, it made a noise for a millisecond and then all power cut off as if the battery drained that quick. Anyone got suggestions? I really don't have a ton of money to put into this which sucks.

 

Welcome to the forum.

Sounds like a bad battery. Either won't take a charge at all, or the voltage rebounds to where accessories will work but you still don't have proper discharge capacity to crank it over. And, to be fair, idling for 45 minutes does not recharge a fully flat battery. You need a multistage charger to properly revive a fully depleted battery.

Have you had it checked? Most places like AutoZone will do free battery checks.

 

Dead battery, or rotten battery cables or connectors. How old is the battery?

 

I've had 3 separate batteries put in and all had the same problem, but i never got this one checked.

 

battery is new, the battery cables aren't the prettiest.

 

Sounds like if the battery tests good you need to preform a parasitic voltage draw test to see what is draining your battery

 

No, start with the cables and connections.

 

Hang on with me...this is a true story, others also experienced it. If my 97 GC wasn't run at least once-a-week = dead battery. Replaced and ran fine til I left it parked. Sears tested the dead battery and gave me a new one (!). They tested the system and found everything was OK. Dies again. Next garage gave me a 3rd new battery saying Sears was defective - it died too. Forth garage specializing in auto electronics found an incredibly esoteric hard-to-diagnose problem (that happens in old GC's). Get this --- the cut off switch inside the tailgate that stops the rear wiper from operating if the rear window is up was bad. It caused just enough drain to keep the BCM from going to sleep when you turned the car off !!!!! IT caused a steady slow drain on the battery. Replaced that and have had the same battery for years, leaving it parked for a month at a time.

 

I seem to remember seeing that in another thread.

 

That would be the next step and it's cheap and easy to do. If the cables and connections are at all questionable, they need taken care of though. I've seen plenty of corroded battery connections and internally rotten cables that caused poor starting and charging. Fresh cables and cleaned up grounds make a world of difference on a 20+ year old vehicle. The local farm&home storms often have a better selection of battery cables at reasonable prices.

 

Yep. Fix known problems first. If the cables and connections are ugly, start there.

 

the last garage (the actual sparkys) were just being nice , finding a drain is as easy as throwing a meter in line with the battery cable and unplugging things until the drain goes away.
Some mechanics just don’t wanna bother.

they say there is no need for dedicated 12v sparkys but I beg to differ.

glad it eventually got fixed though!

 

So I decided before I went and spent the money on cables, I'd buy fuses. Bought a $9 set of fuses on Amazon and replaced every fuse. When I looked at the fuses in the interior fuse box, there were a bunch in open spots and a bunch in the wrong spot (previous owner not me). I put the right ones in and removed the extra ones and the battery no longer drains. I'm still going to buy battery cables sometime in the near future because they look terrible, just gonna focus on brakes and getting new fenders first. Thank you to everyone who replied

 

Does the 99 have an option like some other vehicles, where you can insert a fuse to make the cig lighter always live? It's a nice feature, but you have to be careful to unplug chargers if you're not using the vehicle for days.

 

In my 99, the cigarette lighter is always live (jeep on or off)