I have battery leakage and noone I showed it to could diagnose the problem so, if I want to drive my vehicle the next morning, I have to disconnect the battery every night.

How do I go about doing this? I don't trust these guys that call themselves mechanics in my area so I most likely have to do it myself to not cause a fire from a poor quality job

Or shall I find an actual professional to do it? If I try, what profession would best do this job?

No, I unfortunately don't live in the US (yet) and my vehicle is a 1997 Grand Cherokee 5.2 Limited [ZJ]

(Sorry if I am posting on the wrong thread)

 

I would suggest using something like this to easily and quickly disconnect the battery. I know you said a cabin kill switch but the options for that are:

• To run your negative battery lead all the way to a location in the cabin, to an isolator switch and then ground out locally. Then replace the original ground lead from the battery to the engine with a lead to the body
• To use a heavy amperage relay at the battery that is operated by a switch in the cabin.

The other option is to take a look yourself at your power drain. The easiest way is to use an ammeter or multimeter in Amp setting and pull fuses one by one. You should find that removing one fuse will stop your current draw. From there you can look at that circuit further to find the fault. Another possibility is the alternator causing the drain. It's all digging into the issue and it can take a lot of time.

 

https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f5/ would be the forum for the Jeep Grands, but we'll let you stay. :}

The most common cause for battery drain is the interior lights or glove box light staying on.

 

That's going to require some massive cables, and it will be a kludge. You'll have to bring those massive cables into your cabin, and that means punching through your firewall somewhere. That's not trivial.

A relay that big won't be cheap. Here's one on closeout for $215. On CLOSEOUT.

The battery switch is a good temporary solution. They are easy to install, and not really expensive.

But the best solution is to fix the problem.



Not enough? There are more videos like it.

 

I watched this video alıng with a million others but I don't know what kind of multimeter to use. They range from $5 to $200 and all look pretty much the same to me.

If I can pick a good MM and fill the battery like he does in the beginning, I can do the rest I guess

 

You have to fix a parasitic loss situation, a qualified auto electrician will be able to do that

You can do it yrself, even without a multimeter...just a test light will work, hook it between battery + and the removed cable, it should glow faintly

pull each fuse in the main box till it goes out, then move on to the fuses under the dash

you 100% need to download the service manual free from cruiser54 website on this forum

You cannot allow the present situation to be covered by your a bodge, that is more expensive and not logical

 

The problem is that the repairpeople here are just underpaid, undereducated people who just refuse to look up **** that they do not know (they do not even know english in the first place anyway) so they end up breaking **** or even worse; stealing small parts if they see you as a vulnarable target
I never trust PC repairers, mechanics or any kind of electrical technicians

 

Do it yourself then. Grab a $5 meter and get to work.

 

Remote relay...

https://parts.unitedrv.com/products/...nt=Catch%20All

 

Agree. It's not difficult to track down what is drawing current when the vehicle is off. The usual causes are lights staying on (glove box in particular), sometimes a failed diode in the alternator, I've seen trailer light hookups and electric brake controllers cause drains as well, some USB chargers seems to drain the batteries. Or it's just a bad battery that's not holding much charge.

 

You could even go whole hog and get a $10 meter. Either will work.

This will work. This will work. And yes, this will work.

Paying a mechanic to do electrical work can get very expensive very quickly, and most of them don't know much about electricity anyway.